


Now I'm Learning to Love the Wasteland

by ghoulooney



Category: Fallout (Video Games), Fallout 3
Genre: Breaking the Fourth Wall, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Mental Health Issues, Multi, Multiple Pairings, Original Character(s), Points of View, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-03
Updated: 2017-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-12 18:58:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 61,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4490988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ghoulooney/pseuds/ghoulooney
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
      
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p><br/>Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down<br/>Letting the days go by/water flowing underground<br/>Into the blue again/after the money's gone<br/>Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground</p>
  <p>Time isn't holding up<br/>Time isn't asking us<br/>Same as it ever was...<br/>Yeah, the twister comes<br/>Here comes the twister</p>
  <p>--Once in A Lifetime, Talking Heads<br/></p>
</div>
    </blockquote>





	1. Alpha and Omega

**Author's Note:**

>   
>  Letting the days go by/let the water hold me down  
> Letting the days go by/water flowing underground  
> Into the blue again/after the money's gone  
> Once in a lifetime/water flowing underground
> 
> Time isn't holding up  
> Time isn't asking us  
> Same as it ever was...  
> Yeah, the twister comes  
> Here comes the twister
> 
> \--Once in A Lifetime, Talking Heads  
> 

It was the year 2277, in a world where the 50s' idealistic 'atomic future' had come to fruition.

But perhaps a more apt word would be 'devastation'. 200 years prior the bombs had dropped, as the war between China and the U.S. had reached its breaking point. All over the world the mushroom clouds sprouted--sickly orange blooms releasing mankind's worst fears in one fell swoop. And as the fire and smoke settled, so did a deathly silence.

White-picketed suburbs became rotted out ghost towns, neighbors blood-starved fiends and traitorous scum ready to shoot you over a bottle of water, pets and friendly wildlife were now something monsterous and deadly. Even the trees were burned shadows of their former selves--leafless, gnarled, and ungiving to anyone looking to escape from the sun.

The American Dream transformed into something warped and ugly. The world was reborn, and it was taking no prisoners.

Most people perished the moment the nukes fell. Some--those in vaults or with just plain bad luck--had the misfortune of surviving.

It was the year 2277, in a smoke-soaked bar nestled in what had once been D.C.'s prestigious history museum, two ghouls--humans turned as scarred and jaded as the earth herself, thanks to an unlucky gene and ungodly amounts of radiation exposure--talked over shitty vodka.

**Charon**

"127 years. What's the point?"

"Dude. Harshin' the buzz. Minus five points."

"I'm serious. I've been stuck here for 127 years. Haven't past the front steps once. At least Quinn and Charon get to go out every few weeks... Ain't that right, big guy? Gearin' up to catch some of that fresh air?"

I growled an unintelligible response. Fresh air. Right. Get out and get shot at by smoothskins and deal with all the unsavory types. I refocused on inspecting the large duffel bag of weapons Ahzrukhal had handed me that morning.

 _At least he knows how long he's been here,_ I thought. Something bitter hit the back of my throat accompanied by a pain in my head. I pushed it away.

 _Focus. Focus._ The two ghouls had stopped staring at me, turning back to their piss poor drinks. I didn't mind. Most of the residents in Underworld either ignored or watched me carefully. I was intimidating, even by ghoul standards. Unforgivingly tall and silent, slim "with the strength of five Cuchulains", as Doc Barrows liked to joke.

I was the bar's restlessly short-leashed watchdog--and I'd only bite if Ahzrukhal told me to.

Speak of the devil. Ahzrukhal had slithered out of what seemed to be nowhere, now behind the bar, grabbing the parcel of weapons that I usually trudged out to deliver every month.

"Charon," He wheezed, "Why don't you check up on that slimy rat bastard Barrows, hm?"

If the boss wanted to check in on a slimy rat, he could find a fucking mirror.

I stayed silent, staring emotionlessly at Azhrukhal’s shifty grin as he slid the parcel of weapons back beneath the aged marble countertop.

“That’s an order, boy.”

I grumbled another wordless response, although inwardly I felt relieved. A trick you had to learn pretty early was to complain more visibly when you actually liked something. Azhrukhal was more likely to ‘ask’ those favors of you later.

As soon as I was outta eyesight I left quickly, sighing as the double doors shut weakly behind me. I brightened a little, slouching slightly as I breathed in the “fresh” air beyond the hellish establishment I was forced watched over.

The rest of Underworld wasn’t much of a change in scenery, but it was something. Winthrop, that fellow that usually made rounds and did the repairs, kept the place as tidy as it could get. The rubble was nearly all cleaned up, and the off-white marble that covered nearly everything was slowly returning to its dull shine. The light fixtures and small fires emitted their flat, threatening orange glow a little brighter each day, it seemed. Poor Winthrop was probably running low on scrap metal again, cleaning obsessively to keep himself busy since he couldn't fix damn near anything.

I spared a small wave to Carol, who was leaning over the bannister of the staircase opposite the one I was heading down. She was one of the oldest ghouls there, pre-war, and something of a mother to a lot of residents. She'd shown me nothing but kindness, but there was a strange sadness about her ever since that Gob kid left. I knew Ahzrukhal kept trying to get Carol to come by the bar, probably to get her hooked to chems.

Which is why I'd warned her a few months ago to stay away, in my typical accidentally-frightening fashion. Luckily, she'd steered clear so far.

Quickly down the long staircase and directly behind was the entrance to 'The Chop Shop', Barrows' lab. I passed the large sculpture smack dab in the middle of the wing--the most intact structure left over from the exhibit--which was really just a mass of black stone cut to show hundreds of human figures scrambling and clawing and twisting themselves to the ass-end of nowhere. I hated that damn thing. It reminded me of ferals. Or the smoothskins up top.

Of all the ghouls residing in the old Museum, Doc Barrows was the one guy who seemed the least guarded around me. Normally I didn't like doctor-types and I never was the type to have friends, but in spite of all that Barrows had been the closest thing to one since I could remember.

The Chop Shop was a reasonably sized office-type situation made crowded by several cots, a makeshift operating table, tools and meds, and a small computer where his assistant always sat peering over mountains of research. A large window opposite the entrance peered into another room. Doc was slouching in front of it, chewing a pen over his clipboard.

"Well, if it ain't my favorite lab rat." Barrows greeted without turning. He was the opposite of me--short and somewhat stocky, good humored, talked too much.

"Making progress?" I peered into the window, obscured slightly by a film of dirt, staring at the two ferals Barrows had been watching over for a while now. 'Glowing ones' everyone seemed to call them. Had so many rads pumping through them that they were mostly shambling green lightbulbs and not much else.

"Eh. Meat's been chewing his arm, like usual. The other day though, I swear Ethyl was trying to communicate with me. Mostly just groans. I oughtta send you in, you two could have a great conversation."

"Very funny." I snorted.

Doc waved dismissively at a nearby cot, "Sit down, sit down, let's have a look atcha."

Barrows set to work--checking my ears and nose (what was left of them, anyway), shining a tiny light into my eyes, asking to follow his finger as it traveled steadily through the air. Inspecting teeth, heartbeat, reflexes. Standard fare. Each time he worked intently, nodding and painstakingly writing stuff on his trusty clipboard. The Doc took his time on all ghoul patients--especially with the 'wanderers'--the ones who went out into the wastes regularly. Like Quinn or Willow or myself. I didn't mind, since I knew this kind of thing was going towards the research. Barrows wanted to know what made us all tick, and even hoped to reverse our condition someday.

I didn't think it would ever happen. If there was a cure for ghouls, it wouldn't be taking so damn long.

"You finding any answers, Doc?" I attempted to ask conversationally. Barrows had gone over to a little cabinet near the door, looking for something to take a blood sample with.

"Only more questions, it seems," Barrows answered, cursing for a moment under his breath about needing Quinn to get him some more clean needles, "Like: why do some of us keep a full head a' hair? Or: Do we all talk like old chain-smokin' hollywood mobsters because it's become social norm, or is there a physiological cause? ...I swear to God I had a clean needle just the other day... "

I chuckled, rubbing my face tiredly for just a moment. Even after countless years living as a ghoul, the feel of my own skin would still startle me at times. Leathery, coarse.

"You still ain't sleepin', huh?" Barrows asked.

I answered robotically, "Every second I'm sleeping I'm--"

_(dreaming)_

"--Not doin' your job, yeah, yeah." Barrows sighed. He was the only ghoul in Underworld (other than Azhrukhal, of course) who knew of my little 'condition'--that's what he called it, anyways. He'd been trying to figure that out, too--as stubborn as he was dark humored--but to no avail.

"Aha! Found one... Hold your arm out for me, yeah? Thanks.

First the rubber band...

now the sting..."

I spaced out for a moment, lost in the strange, red disfigurement of my own hands. The small sections of 'normal' looking skin interrupting like a bad joke. With the exception of my face and arms, most of my skin looked fairly human. Doc once said that I was lucky--aside from the large expanse of exposed muscle on my shoulder and right calf and a few spots on my ribcage, I had held up pretty well.

The largest part of the mutation exposing my shoulder--the one that ached arbitrarily and all too often--I didn't like thinking about that one too much. Hurt my head and seemed to make all thoughts short.

My head had taken the worst of it. ("Your days on the silverscreen are over, but cheer up. There's always radio!") was Doc's attempt at making light of it all. Then again, I never met another ghoul that had managed to keep their nose, either. Hair, maybe. I had barely any of that left to call my own. Just a few patches of dark red against skin that appeared burnt to hell and frozen over.

I stared into the small vial now housing some of my blood. Frowned. Same red as any old smoothskin's. Speaking of smoothskins, I noticed the cot empty cot off in the corner then, empty except for the small halo of warm yellow light created by the wall fixture above.

"What happened to that girl that was recovering over there, Doc?"

Barrows got up, sealing the blood sample and rummaging around for his clipboard.

"Hm? Oh, uh, the Riley gal? She woke up."

"Always knew you were a miracle worker."

"Don't make me laugh. It was that Vault Dweller everyone's heard so much about. It was last month, while you were ... running errands... for your boss again."

I grumbled wordlessly again, looking away as Barrows eyed me slyly. Everybody wanted to know where I went during 'errands', but I wouldn't breathe a word. And it wasn't Ahzrukhal's threats shutting me up, either.

"Anyhow..." Barrows quickly moved on when he realized today was not the day for spilling secrets, "You heard about her. Three Dog can hardly contain himself over a hero type like that. Radio's gone half-static with his excitement. She came in here, asking if I needed help--"

I chuckled. A smoothskin samaritan. That was rich.

"Actually talked shop for awhile. Nice to meet someone who knows as much about medicine... scientific method and all that mess... got a bit touchy when I asked for a kidney, though."

"Barrows," I rubbed the pain from where he'd just drawn blood impatiently, "you're ramblin' again."

"Oh... right. Anyway, woke that knocked out smoothskin right up when I had my back turned. That peeved me a little--I don't like people taking over for me, ya know? But like I said, Vault Gal's a bleeding heart."

I shrugged and got up, deciding it was time to get back to my post. I could practically hear the gears in Barrows' green egg-shaped head turning on my way out. I rolled my eyes and sighed the moment he heard him speak up:

"That reminds me... remember what we talked about a while back? 'Bout seeking new employment?"

"I told you, it ain't that simple. I can't just _ask_ \--"

"Bleeding. Heart. Tell her a sob story about your situation and I garun-fuckin-tee ya she'll buy the contract from Ahz. I swear on Meat 'n Ethyl."

I'd reached for the double doors and was halfway to the plaza's statue by the time Barrows was done jabbering.

Barrows called after me, "At least consider it, huh?!"

_consider it_

Yeah. Right.

**\----**

There was a painting right outside the doors to The Ninth Circle. It'd always felt familiar to Charon--and even though it was ruined to the point of being nothing more than faded shapes, he could always make out at least three figures.

One redheaded male, bending to rip the throat from his dark-haired brother. His knee breaking his back. And the winged demon overhead, his face a ruined smudge of green--but grinning widely.

It was the year 2277, and Charon's life had not changed in the least since he'd arrived in Underworld.

But it was about to. Charon could feel the strange premonition crawling up his back and slithering across his bad shoulder, the moment he paused to stare at that painting. The instant the sound of the door to the concourse--'outside'--echoed open and shut, and Patches began whooping like the obnoxious town drunk he was,

"Whoo-ee! We got ourselves a tourist! The Vault Gal, none less!"


	2. Same as It Ever Was/Mother Superior Jumped the Gun

**Wilde**  
  
_"Hold on Jonas, I-I need to record this first.  
  
I... I don't really know how to tell you this. I hope you'll understand, but I know you might be angry. I thought about it for a long time, but in the end I decided it was best for you not to know. So many things could have gone wrong, and there's really no telling how the overseer will react when he finds out. It's best if he can blame everything on me.  
  
Obviously you already know that I'm gone. It was something I needed to do. You're an adult now. You're ready to be on your own. Maybe someday things will change and we can see each other again. I can't tell you why I left or where I'm going. I don't want you to follow me. God knows life in the vault isn't perfect, but at least you'll be safe. Just knowing that will be enough to keep me going."_  
  
Jonas' voice--my father's assistant and best friend, my mentor--bright and ever-amiable. I teared up a little each time I heard it:  
  
_"Don't mean to rush you, Doc, but I'd feel better if we got this over with."_  
  
My father's, gentle and reassuring:  
  
_"Okay. Go ahead. Goodbye. I love you."_  
  
The garbled sound of a lever being pulled, the lazy, frightening groan of metal: of Vault 101 opening its maw. Changing the world--my world--forever.  
  
I replayed the holotape on my Pip Boy again. Again. Burning it into my brain, turning it in my head over and over again for any kind of hint.  
  
There wouldn't be one. There hadn't been a single one since I'd discovered the holotape on Jonas' body--murdered by the vault's guards--and escaped from The Overseer's sudden, explosive madness after my father left.  
  
_"Selfish and insubordinate, just like your father..."_  
  
There was no 'puzzle', no cryptic message here to be solved. Really, the holotape had become nothing more than a father speaking to his daughter for the last time, and my grip on reality.  
  
And goodness knew I needed that lately more than ever.  
  
This new world was everything the old films and books back in 101 promised it would be, and yet nothing like it at all. So much light and noise--even the silence in the wastes was disorienting at times. Death, mutation, utter chaos. The complete opposite of the place I called "home" during childhood.  
  
Somehow the outside was better by a longshot. Horrifying, but better.  
  
Even still, I was losing my head. I could barely keep track of the days anymore. The loss of Jonas and my father (who I hoped was still alive), and the pressures and growing reputation I had as a result of helping a few downtrodden wastelanders were beginning to take their toll. Helping out Riley and her band of mercenaries had been a close call for Dogmeat because of it.  
  
As hard as it was to admit, I found myself in need of help. And feeling alone. The Wasteland had that effect on you. Its emptiness gave you the notion that a thousand dead eyes were all fixed on you. Even the winds and abandoned buildings were heavy with whispers.  
  
Someone with a gun would work. Someone with experience would be best.  
  
Which was partly why I'd returned to Underworld.  
  
"a-TEN-HUT."  
  
I jumped, startled by the Mr. Gutsy now floating directly in front of me. A spherical robot equipped with plasma weapons, a barking voice, three optics and snake-like metal arms.  
  
"Hello Cerberus." I smiled. The little guy reminded me of the more refined (and clumsy) Mr. Handy we had back at the vault--Andy, his name was. I probably missed him more than the majority of people living down there.  
  
"Area secure! Go Underworld! Go ghouls!" Cerberus whirred under his breath, "...Curse this stupid pansy zombie programming..." He zipped away, continuing his patrol upstairs. Winthrop had explained that the strange ghoul-hating code was his handiwork, but sometimes I wasn't so sure.  
  
I'd already asked the guard outside, Willow, if she'd be interested in joining me. She'd shaken her head, saying "Tch. Travel with a smoothskin? Sorry tourist, guardin' a Deathclaw would be safer."  
  
I followed Cerberus up one of the large staircases now, trying to find Quinn. That's where I'd encountered him the first time I'd ventured down to Underworld.  
  
One of the residents had explained that this place was an exhibit in an old museum, showcasing what various cultures thought of the afterlife. It was too bad that most of the resources were gone and the art destroyed. I had a penchant for learning about the past that seemed so deeply tied to this world, and I was constantly searching for more.  
  
I was looking forward to talking to Carol again--of all pre-war ghouls I'd met so far, she seemed the most open about her experiences. But I sighed upon reaching the door to her little corner of the strange, marble-covered 'city':  
  
_sorry we're CLOSED. Greta's feeling under the weather. Have a nice day!_  
  
"Doctor Barrows said ghouls don't get sick...?" I heard myself whisper. I was talking to myself so much more often now that I was getting on my own nerves. I chuckled at this and turned. My face fell. The only quiet place left to sit down and think was the bar right across the way, 'The Ninth Circle'.  
  
**Carol**  
  
"She's headed to The Ninth, now. You owe me one." I said, letting the huge double doors slam behind me.  
  
Barrows groaned impatiently, jokingly, as he fumbled with his pocket. He withdrew several bottlecaps--the brave new world's currency--and dropped them into my marred, outstretched hand.  
  
"What makes you so sure?" He asked, lighting my cigarette.  
  
"Cause I just looked inside, you dolt. What makes _you_ so sure? Ahzrukhal's no fool. Why would he sell?"  
  
"Patches told me he was lookin' to sell." Barrows shrugged.  
  
"Tch. You can trust Patches about as well as you can keep parts of him falling off."  
  
"I have to. I have to trust it. ...I need to get him out. 'Sides, I got a feeling, alright? Call it premonition."  
  
We stood in silence for a few moments, right outside the exhibit's doors. It was quiet in the huge circular concourse of the museum, empty. I regarded the other entrances to old exhibits surrounding us on all sides. There was one for Abraham Lincoln, another for some World War. The last one was marked 'The Resource Wars, 2052-PRESENT'. The entrance to that one was completely blocked off by rubble.  
  
"Imagine the guns we could've gotten out of there, eh?" Barrows broke the silence, as was his habit, "And what's with the mammoth? Do you think it's real?" He chuckled. Barrows was pre-war, but you wouldn't know it from his demeanor. He wouldn't tell you, either.  
  
"It's about as real as this plan of yours. Ahzrukhal's not selling."  
  
"He'll sell." Barrows snapped, turning around to stare at the gigantic skull etched over our city's door, "I know it."  
  
" _How?_ " I stared into the ember of my cigarette, eating away at the paper oh-so-slowly. I remembered my father's shadow. How it had seared into the ground when the bombs had fallen. How dark it was, against all that blinding light.  
  
"I _know._ Charon's losing it."  
  
**Charon**  
  
"I should be heading out. May I have the parcel."  
  
"No, no." Ahzrukhal insisted, "You'll be staying here. That nosy little do-good smoothskin is making her rounds. Go be useful in the corner and _try_ to look a little more intimidating. Go, go."  
  
_(consider it)_  
  
He shooed me away from the counter. I obliged, clenching my fists at sides all the while. I didn't want to stay. Not today. Not when there was a chance of leaving this godforsaken place for good. Not while there was something giving me even a sliver of a hope. Hope was a splinter in the brain, and it had to be removed as soon as possible. As far as I knew, all it ever led to was a feverish disappointment.  
  
I took my place beside a sad, marble pillar on the same wall as the entrance--the farthest, most dim section of the bar. It was here that I could simultaneously watch and ignore every patron and my boss.  
  
Ahzrukhal's voice boomed its fake pleasantry as he served another round to the lonesome pair seated on tall stools (Patches and someone else I didn't care about), "Here ya go boys--drink till she's pretty, huh?"  
  
They all laughed uproariously. I rolled my tired eyes. The radio hummed its tinny sounds in the opposite corner:  
  
_"I don't want set the world on fire..."_  
  
Static rang along in the background, a grinding undertone that seemed relentless. I rubbed at my eyes, straightening up at the sound of a door opening and timidly closing shut.  
  
"Well, Ahz. I think I mighta drank too much." The two ghouls stared in awe, then laughed at the exhausted looking woman who'd just entered.  
  
Spending most days standing in a corner had given me a keen eye for people. I knew what drunken townsfolk sobbed about, what most tourists were looking for, how far they needed to go. Who was addicted to what and how often they needed it. Who would start fights or need to be carried out by the end of the night.  
  
She was taller than most smoothskins I'd met. Still shorter than me by plenty. Probably came up to my chin. She was skinny in every place but her hips. Had an old-world look about her--a pretty face framed by a wavy blonde bob. Her haircut was uneven--Snowflake, our local jetted out 'barber' had probably convinced to sit at the mercy of his scissors. She was pale, and the skin across her nose was badly sunburnt. I imagined all those vault people would have that problem. For some reason, I found myself smirking.  
  
Blue eyes. Like mine, but clear. Like the sky on a day where the debris and the fog up top wasn't too awful. They were bright and wide, zipping around the room, taking note of every detail. She was book sharp, probably. But that also meant she knew next to nothing about the way things worked out here--and I was right. One look at her armor and pack said it all. She'd merely strapped a shoulder guard, belts and some pouches to her blue leather jumpsuit and called it a day. '101' was emblazoned on her back in bright yellow. A strange plasma rifle strapped there slightly obscured the numbers. An overstuffed pack down by her side jangled with the weight of many things, but mostly bottlecaps. That factor alone was enough to paint a giant bullseye on the back of her head.  
  
She stepped up to the bar, looking back with uncertainty at the limping, pointy-eared mutt that accompanied her. She was lost. No, no. She'd lost _something_.  
  
Ahzrukhal tsked in feigned sympathy at the sight of her bandaged dog. Misery was the man's favorite vice.  
  
"Poor thing..." His voice rattled, "Why don't you pull up a chair and tell Uncle Ahz all about it."  
  
Patches now, in a way that made me want to rip what was left of my own face off, "Hey. _Hey._ Barrows said you was a doctor? I got a gentleman's issue I need a look at..."  
  
The tourist grinned, full of geniality, "Ah, Patches. They warned me about you. As vile as you are smelly."  
  
If Patches had a tail, it'd be between his legs then. It took everything I had not to burst out laughing. I allowed myself a snort of a chuckle, to which Ahzrukhal responded with a deafening glare. I silenced, promptly straightening up.  
  
"Anything to drink, miss?"  
  
"No, thank you. Have you boys seen Quinn around?"  
  
"Unfortunately, Quinn is out scavenging. He left quite some time ago."  
  
She frowned, looking down at the clunky brown old-world tech strapped to her left wrist for a few moments. Pip boys, I think they were called. Extremely rare. Another risk.  
  
She seemed to be considering whether or not she wanted to leave, then eyed the empty table in my corner.  
  
"If you don't mind I'd like to stay awhile, gather my thoughts?"  
  
Ahzrukhal nodded, visibly irked by her refusal to drink.  
  
The mutt arrived at the table first, laying down beneath it, eager to rest her leg. The tourist took the seat directly facing me.  
  
_(consider it)_  
  
I wouldn't even know the right words to bring it up, let alone the fact that I knew Azhrukhal well enough that he wouldn't give me--a prized guard dog--up to just anyone.  
  
Even if that person _did_ obviously have a foolish amount of caps.  
  
I shook my head, trying get that ugly hope out.  
  
Most tourists flinched when they saw me. But she... she actually smiled.  
  
I didn't respond. I didn't know how. Instead, I withdrew a cigarette from my pocket and lit it with a match, watching the flame die as I waved it away.  
  
**Wilde**  
  
Everything about him seemed strong, as though he was wrought from iron and hellfire. His height and frame, his jaw, his cheekbones. The weathered condition of his leather armor. Even the intensity of his clouded blue eyes revealed the tired grimness of someone who'd travelled the Capital Wastes too often.  
  
He leaned against the wall for a moment, stooping a little to light a cigarette. I thought of the titan Atlas, carrying the whole of the cosmos on his back.  
  
I had to speak to him, no matter how prickly he looked.  
  
"Hey. _Hey._ Big Red. Over here."  
  
His eyes narrowed impatiently.  
  
"You look like you've traveled. You wouldn't happen to have seen an older gentleman? A ...smoothskin. Looks like me, gray hair?"  
  
"Talk. to. Ahzrukhal."  
  
His voice had the same rough affect as most other ghouls I'd met. It was calm, measured and assertive, nothing like Quinn or Barrows' spirited way of speaking.  
  
"But I--"  
  
He raised his right hand, "No, no. You talk to Ahzrukhal."  
  
His rudeness didn't phase me. In fact, it only further fueled my curiousity. I stood up, commanding Dogmeat to stay when she perked up her head.  
  
I marched up to the bar. Ahzrukhal looked up and smiled warmly. I returned it, but only outwardly. Any fool with half a brain could detect his sleaziness.  
  
My first visit to Underworld, Barrows' had relayed that ghoulification varied as uniquely as a fingerprint--everyone's level of 'decay' was different, the patterns of exposed muscle all distinct, skin color came in shades humans hadn't known before.  
  
Ahzrukhal was a peculiar shade of pallid yellow--like the edges of a page from a pre-war book. His suit held the same parchment-like hue, as though he hoped to remain camouflaged against the walls of his bar at all times. His eyes were dark and dim, though not from a lack of intelligence.  
  
His voice didn't so much rasp as it did gargle. It was the voice of a man constantly drowning, and his words were sinisterly amicable--a person trying to pull you down with them.  
  
"Ah..." His mummy-like hands rubbed together in anticipation, "Can I get you something to drink, darling?"  
  
"Please, don't call me that." I smiled wider. Ahzrukhal brought his shifting hands down by his side.  
  
"Your man in the corner there... not too friendly, is he?"  
  
Another warm grin, this time brimming with excitement:  
  
"I see you've met Charon. He's the best bodyguard this side of the capital wastes, probably in the entire country. More than valuable than an average merc. There is something that sets him... apart from all the rest."  
  
"Oh yeah? What's that?"  
  
"He isn't bogged down by a stupid sense of morality. Anyone who holds his contract, holds his gun. Charon was brainwashed."  
  
Bullshit. " _How._ "  
  
He waved a hand dismissively, "The where's and who's are not important. What's important is Charon deserved it... and when I point at something, he hurts it."  
  
I turned for a spell to look back at Charon, who was moving his head away from us at that moment, visibly restless, though his face remained emotionless.  
  
Bullshit. All bullshit. But I'd humor it. It was the only chance I had for a gun at my side in that moment. I didn't have much choice. Besides, something about the guy looked utterly miserable. A change in scenery had to be preferable, right?  
  
"How much for the contract? I'd like to buy it."  
  
That ugly yellow grin grew larger, I was being swindled by an old-war car salesman, no doubt. "Well now, I can't just give Charon away for any nominal fee. Being morally obtuse in this environment is damn near priceless, and I--"  
  
**Charon**  
  
"Three thousand caps."  
  
The sound of Patches spitting his drink. The tinkling crash of a glass falling to the floor as the fella seated next to him dropped his.  
  
I'd been trying to stealthily eavesdrop on the conversation since its start, but I couldn't help but gawk now.  
  
"Done." Ahzrukhal replied, maliciously, "But I want the caps _up front._ "  
  
"Done." Everything out of her mouth seemed solely intent on mocking him. I couldn't respect much from other smoothskins I'd met, but I could respect that.  
  
She walked confidently back to the table, grabbing up that jingly rucksack of hers. There was a recklessness to how stubborn she was. If it weren't for the shock taking hold and the desperate need to get out from under Ahz's employment, I would've realized the dangers of that right then and there--for both of us.  
  
But hope makes a man stupid, especially when its becoming reality right before your eyes.  
  
Back at the counter, Ahz was retrieving the contract from a hidden pocket in his suit coat. Asking the tourist for a pen.  
  
Egghead, through and through. Only an egghead would have a pen in that moment.  
  
She inspected the tattered document that held my whole identity very carefully. Ahzrukhal was pulling out a large bag at the bottom of her pack, his eyes glazing over with ugly lust at the sight of so many caps.  
  
"That's _it_? One piece of paper? It's not even legible."  
  
"Charon has the terms memorized. I'm not getting any younger, miss. Please, sign. You may simply cross out my name. Kindly print, as well. Underneath. That's right."  
  
Why was he so fucking eager? It was a lot of caps, sure. But not much more than others in the past had offered. I was a 'masterpiece in the sciences of the human mind, a seventh wonder', he would always boast. 'More precious than clean water'. Yet there he was, simply handing over the contract to the first wanderer with the gall to offer nothing more than the highest bid.  
  
I could feel my palms sweat as Ahzrukhal held up the seemingly ordinary piece of paper, reading the signature.  
  
"You were named after the pre-war poet." He remarked.  
  
"My mother's favorite." Her voice twinged with sadness. Her head bowed for just a moment, a little halo of light from behind the bar making her hair look even more golden. Reminded me of something.  
  
_(next one: 9 across, starts with 'A'. 6 letters  
  
god of justice and warfare, born from zues' head  
  
that's an easy one. athena)_  
  
Most of my memories came in short burst fires. There was never context, never clear understanding. No pictures. A scorched up book written by someone else. I only knew that they were mine, and that I needed to avoid them.  
  
"Is everything in order?"  
  
"It is. Take care of him. He's like a son to me."  
  
Ahzrukhal relinquished the meager document to her. He immediately turned his attention to the huge bag of bottlecaps.  
  
She perused it once more, nodded, then turned around.  
  
What little emotions I had left all seemed to fire off left and right. My fists clenched to keep my hands from shaking. My face felt paralyzed. My chest dragged as though it had forgotten how to grab at oxygen.  
  
There was a catch. A trick. There had to be, it couldn't be so easy.  
  
I didn't know it then, but the catch was me.  
  
The tourist was beaming as she approached my corner. I dropped my unfinished cigarette to the ground, stamped it out with a dirtied boot.  
  
**Wilde**  
  
"Well, it looks like I'm your new employer."  
  
I held his contract up. He leaned forward, glowering at my freshly scribbled signature. His expression didn't move an inch. He didn't grab at it or even lift a finger, as if he thought the aged scrap of paper might burn him if he tried.  
  
"That is... good to hear." Despite his now-polite words there was no happiness in his voice, no relief. In fact, he only appeared to be more restless.  
  
His chillingly focused eyes were over my head, zeroed in on the bar.  
  
"If you'll excuse me for just a moment, there's something I must do."  
  
He moved past me quickly. I followed, not objecting. I supposed anyone might wand to say 'adieu' to their boss--even if they were a scumbag.  
  
**Charon**  
  
Dumb bastard hadn't even looked up from looking through the bag of caps, "Charon, m'boy. Come to say goodbye?"  
  
"Yes." I answered. My own voice sounded strange. Far off and half-away.  
  
It was only half a second, maybe, but when I blinked something flashed before me like lightning. A bark scorpion: ugly and yellow, considerably smaller than your standard wasteland variety, crawling across desert sand.  
  
_(i'm sorry  
  
charlie  
  
im so sorry)_  
  
**Wilde**  
  
I'd only just reached his side when Charon had drawn his shotgun so quickly that Ahzrukhal barely even looked up from his caps to realize what was happening.  
  
Charon muttered something a little odd. It sounded like "Well, I ain't."  
  
A shot was fired. I stepped back, but only slightly. I was not afraid. Not after leaving the vault. Something was holding all of that back, as though it knew I needed to be brave in order to find my father.  
  
To say Ahzrukhal's head was blown off would be a disgusting understatement. It was more of an explosion, spraying blood on the back wall. Splatters covered the neat little shelves and the dirtied glasses resting upon them. Some of the blood had landed on Charon and myself. There was a tiny splash as a small piece of Ahzrukhal's skull landed in Patches' amber colored beverage.  
  
Even the radio seemed to short out for a spell.  
  
Then the screaming started.  
  
Charon looked unaffected, near trance-like. He stared at the empty space Ahzrukhal was occupying moments earlier. The concentrated mass of his brain and blood on the back wall, dripping slowly towards the floor.  
  
I reached out a slightly shaking hand. I wasn't sure if I was trying to comfort him or draw him out of that frozen stance. Perhaps I was just trying to gain stability after such a raw event. Before I could reach him, he moved, brushing his shoulder off casually before lowering his gun. My own hand returned to my side.  
  
He turned his head finally and gave me an expectant glare.  
  
"We should... probably go." I said. The bar was now empty. There was no doubt that a panic was building outside.  
  
"As you wish."  
  
I whistled to Dogmeat, who perked her ears up instantly. She scuttled behind as I took up my pack. Charon swung the door open with such force that I could swear it'd likely broken. No one was out on the second floor with exception of Snowflake, who was in a rare state of silence, staring my new companion and me in shock.  
  
We passed the painting. It was the only bit of scenery Charon seemed to pay any mind to on our way out.  
  
"Dante and Virgil in Hell." I remarked.  
  
Charon stared at me quizzically.  
  
"The painting. That's its title." I explained, pointing to the two men violently ripping each other apart, "It's busted up, sure, but you can still make out the souls of wrath. See? I only know that because of the books my fa--"  
  
Charon blinked and slowed his steps, "Did you want your caps?"  
  
"What?"  
  
"Your caps. On the counter back there. I'm sure Ahzrukhal wouldn't object if you took them back. ...There's weapons in there too, if you want them."  
  
"I have too much to carry already. Let's just call it a donation."  
  
He shrugged, continuing on towards the staircase.  
  
Snowflake remembered himself all of a sudden, calling a barrage of questions off the bannister:  
  
"What happened? Don't tell me he's dead. Don't tell me he's dead, man. I need my fix, okay. Charon?! _What the hell happened in there. What have you done._ "  
  
On the bottom floor other residents were scurrying--some away, some up the stairs. All in droves. Despite the whispers and the shouts and the lingering stares, Charon kept his eyes and feet headed straight for the main doors to the concourse.  
  
Barrows and Carol were outside, standing by a barrel fire pit and arguing. The pair quieted as soon as we made it out.  
  
"Well, strap a branch to my head and call me 'Harold'." Barrows smiled. I knew immediately by the mixed expression on Carol's face--the two of them had somehow planned this.  
  
"Mind if I get a word with ya, Wilde? In private." Barrows asked.  
  
I nodded to Charon, who was giving me another expectant look. If that little slip of paper was bogus, he was doing pretty damn good job of playing his part long after the point was moot.  
  
"This way, please." Barrows started off hurriedly towards the Lincoln Exhibit, located closest to a gargantuan stuffed woolly mammoth statue. Charon sat beneath it.  
  
"Sorry, no dogs. Don't want to disturb my patients."  
  
Dogmeat wagged her tail. Poor thing.  
  
"Go on, girl." She turned, parking herself near Charon.  
  
"Smart pup." Barrows pulled out a set of keys from his bloodstained fatigues and struggled with opening the doors, groaning and cursing with the effort. When I attempted to help, he batted me away.  
  
Barrows panted once he managed to get it to crack, "After you."  
  
It was barely visible inside. Odd glowing dust particles suspended through the air revealed that it was nearly the same straightforward layout as Underworld, only in serious disrepair. The smell was near overwhelming--dank, musty and foul. I attempted burying my nose in the collar of my jumpsuit, but it was no help.  
  
Barrows led me to an enclosed booth near the doors. The sign above it read 'INFORMATION'. He shut the door, locked it.  
  
"Why all the lock and key?" I coughed.  
  
"Sh sh keep your voice down. You'll wake 'em. Look, I've got a busy schedule and you're a smart cookie so we'll keep this short. You have the contract?"  
  
I nodded.  
  
"Let's see it."  
  
I set my pack on the dusty booth's counter, unzipping a small side compartment.  
  
"It's only one page. And you can't even read anything. I'm certain it's fake."  
  
"Yeah, and I reckon Charon's beaten men he respects to a bloody pulp for owing a few caps for kicks." Barrows snapped it up from between my fingers, "But I figure you wouldn't go for hiring a person you thought was a--"  
  
"I can't believe... You... you wanted me to think it was phony. You paid Carol to close up just so I would--"  
  
"You're an excellent people-reader, Wilde. It's why we're such good friends."  
  
"I've only spoken to you once before."  
  
"...This... This isn't right. There's gotta be..." Barrows was ignoring me as he hurriedly turned the contract over and over in his hands, "Hang on.Turn on that pip-boy light of yours, will ya?"  
  
I clicked my light on low, the screen on my wrist glowing an eerie green in the blackened room. It matched the dark green tint in Barrows' skin and hair. The opposite of Charon's red.  
  
A gasp, "Holy shit... I knew it... I fuckin' _knew_ it."  
  
I paused, waiting for him to say more. Barrows wasn't the type of person you had to nudge to keep talking.  
  
"Look! Look! You recognize this, don't you?"  
  
I squinted. Held over the light between us, the page revealed a small watermark. A perfect circle, with three lines passing through it horizontally. It was a symbol any vault dweller would know.  
  
"Vault-Tec." I whispered, "You think he was... brainwashed... in a vault? Vaults were meant to be residential."  
  
"Not all of 'em. Some fucked up shit happened in most. Experiments, prisons. In fact, I'd say 101 was an outlier. Maybe it wasn't. You ever wonder why your little home was sealed up for so long?"  
  
I blinked painfully, shoved it away just as quickly, "What does this mean?" I asked him.  
  
"It means two things. One: Charon's pre-war. And two: His brain's locked up tighter than the place you called home. Except it's probably filled with fire and radiation. Lots of it."  
  
Barrows handed the contract back to me.  
  
I didn't know whether to feel guilty or appalled. Guilty for buying what was essentially a slave, appalled that I'd fallen for Barrows' well-intended and shoddy plans. Barrows was watching me intently, his brown eyes softening. His arm rubbing at the back of his head.  
  
"I know this is a lot. But I'm trying to do what's best. I know you're a good smoo---person. And.. I need help."  
  
I didn't have the time or the resources to. I was more suited for fixing wounds, not healing minds. I needed to find my father. And besides, my own head was feeling unstable. I imagine everyone's was. How did the sick heal the sick?  
  
But the need to assist won out. It always did.  
  
"What do I do? How can I ...fix this. Burn it?"  
  
"No no no. NO. There's no tellin' what would happen if that thing got destroyed. His whole sense of reality is in the fibers of that thing. He's breaking though, I can tell you that. And when that happens, you bring him back to me. Carol and I will know what to do."  
  
"How does... how will I know?"  
  
SLAM. My heart jumped. I grabbed my pack from the counter instinctively and hugged it to my chest. A feral ghoul beat upon the scratched glass of the booth. Its teeth gnashed within its skeletal, glowing face filled with nothing but hunger.  
  
Barrows procured a tiny vial within his pocket, also glowing strangely:  
  
"'Fraid I'm all booked up today!" He raised his friendly voice over the sound of the feral's aggressive rapping shaking the booth, "I might have a three o'clock open later, check back then." Barrows tossed the vial out of a small slot in the center of the glass. The feral turned and bolted.  
  
"They like radium." He shrugged. I was still a bit shaken, but Barrows picked up as though he'd never been interrupted:  
  
"You'll know when you see it. Pre-wars block their memories for a reason. I mean, knock on skull that it don't happen tomorrow. Heh. Sorry. Ghoul joke."  
  
A chorus of low groans and howls resounded in the distant and heavy blackness. I switched off my Pip Boy light and rested a wary hand on my pistol.  
  
"No need for that," Barrows' voice hissed impatiently in the dark, "This way."  
  
**Charon**  
  
"You know what they say," Carol remarked staring airily into the clear glass door leading to the Wastes, "You can never go home again."  
  
I looked up from carving a 'W' into the butt of my gun with a combat knife. The mutt--Dogmeat--paced restlessly nearby, sniffing at the ground.  
  
"This place was never home." I replied simply.  
  
"Is that... is that blood..."  
  
"Yes."  
  
Carol quieted, wrung her hands. Half of me wanted to tell her I was not a bad person, just a person who'd been following bad orders. The other half wasn't so sure I _wasn't_ a bad person.  
  
Dogmeat barked. I returned the knife back to its sheath on my thigh and stood.  
  
**Wilde**  
  
"Have you been usin' that sunblock I gave you? Nose looks redder than Charon's hair. Jesus. One more thing. Ask him questions, but don't push it if he gets touchy. Encourage him to get his sense a' free will back, alright? Oh, and there's a nasty rumor goin' round that rads make you go feral. It ain't true, but Charon believes it. Keep that in mind..."  
  
Before opening the double doors to the concourse, Barrows grabbed my arms gently and looked at me, like a parent sending their child off to school for their first day. Given our difference in height, I would have thought it comical, if it weren't for the ferals' feet pounding towards us.  
  
"And be careful. He's my... like a... son to me."  
  
"You might want to keep that to yourself. The last man who said that caught a bullet, Doctor."  
  
"What? Oh _for Harold's sake_." He opened the doors, screaming into the abyss one last time before locking them up, "PIPE THE FUCK DOWN AND GO BACK TA BED. Damn kids."  
  
"Leonard, we've got a problem." Carol pointed to the doors back at Underworld, where the panic sounded full blown now.  
  
Barrows regarded Charon with his hands on his hips, "I swear to god, if you had ears I'd be draggin' you out by them. Scram. Both of ya's. I got a mess to blow over."  
  
I took the hint and headed for the exit. Past the large archway, into a smaller circular section with a round desk littered with skeletal computer parts and swiveling chairs. Graffitied so much so that could hardly make out the original wood underneath. "Killroy was here" and "the centre cannot hold" were the markings that stood out the most.  
  
Dogmeat and my new unique companion followed close behind as I opened the final set of glass doors.  
  
The sun was searingly bright. I still wasn't used to it. I wondered if I ever would be. My eyes blinked at their own accord. Adjusted to the cracks, trash, and ghostly cars littering The Mall. The horizon was jagged with the silhouettes of gutted landmarks. The dead promises of a dead future.  
  
My companions stood on either side of me, both silent and alert.  
  
_I will not, cannot be afraid,_ I told myself.  
  
I lifted the wrist housing my Pip Boy, turned the radio on. A strange sense of comfort washed over me as Three Dog's voice blared out in its deeply buzzing, sage tone:  
  
"G _ooooo_ d morning, Capital Wasteland! Today's forecast: Excessively violent, with a chance of dismemberment..."  
  
A smile somehow found its way to my face, and like so many before us, we set out--guns in hand.


	3. Woman Kings, Knights of Shame (...See Ya, Space Cowboy)

**Charon**  
  
“You sure? Nothing you left behind, nobody you wanted to say goodbye to? ...Other than Ahzrukhal, I mean.”  
  
“Positive.”  
  
“Not even Doctor Barrows?”  
  
“Nah.” I had no idea if I'd ever see him again. In these cases, it was better to say nothing at all.  
  
“Patches?”  
  
I snorted. Her head poked out from the back of the overturned Nuka-Cola truck she'd insisted on searching through, grinning playfully. Searching this place was a bust. These old delivery trucks had been among the first to get ransacked. Stripped for parts and gutted without ceremony. The odds of finding something useful were as slim as coming across a settler in a suit.  
  
A wilted street lamp groaned above the truck. It'd been a few days of too-easy travel. We were outside an old grocery store then—Super Duper Mart, smooths called it. No signs of life, though the morning was getting particularly foggy and making me anxious.  
  
This was raider territory, and the fact that none were screaming out from the woodworks of the long dead shop by now meant trouble.  
  
Dogmeat sniffed the air. She relaxed for a moment, laying down. The tension in my shoulders eased up an inch. I was extremely thankful for the mutt. She was the only alarm I had, sensing danger before it could creep up from the labyrinthian city grounds and too-quiet valleys.  
  
The smoothskin (Wilde, what a strange name) called from within the truck. She'd been attempting to make light conversation ever since our departure from Underworld. It wasn't going to work. I may have been honor-bound to keep danger off her back, but that didn't mean I had to be friendly.  
  
“So why do they call you Charon?”  
  
“It's my name.” I answered bluntly. If she asked something, I'd answer, but it wasn't gonna turn into a damned psychiatry session on my watch.  
  
“I mean why do they pronounce it 'Sharon'. It's usually pronounced _'Kar_ \--nevermind. Tomato, to-mah-to.”  
  
“Nobody says tomato like that.”  
  
She laughed, coughed, “Ugh, God, it _smells_ back here.”  
  
“Be cautious.” I warned.  
  
She ignored me, loudly going through more rotting wooden crates and chattering on brightly, “Interesting name, Charon. Important figure in greek mythos.”  
  
“Hm.” This was not an invitation for her to keep speaking so much as it was an acknowledgement that I'd heard her, but she kept talking anyway. Like I knew she would.  
  
“He ferried the dead to and from Hades' realm along the River Styx. Escorted many greek heros—Psyche, the lovesick Orpheus, the mighty and handsome Hercules...”  
  
“Well, I ain't no Hercules.” That was certain.  
  
She laughed again. I did not understand her persistent optimism. There was nothing funny about this world and very little to smile about.  
  
So far she hadn't given me any clear orders. Just a handful of 'wait here's and a request to 'please stop talking like a robot.' (which I didn't fully comprehend)  
  
I'd had nothing to work with—just follow her and make sure she didn't get dead or worse.  
  
She seemed hellbent on preventing me from even that, telling me to stand outside the old truck and watch for danger. There wasn't any, except for maybe a stray radscorpion or two. Even the raiders were quiet today, which I thought was odd.  
  
It was foggy. Why was it getting foggy.  
  
I noticed a small insignia slapdashedly painted on the rusted blue metal of the dark enclosure Wilde continued on scouring.  
  
A snake in the shape of an '8'. Eating itself continuously.  
  
“This symbol... it could mean danger.” I called.  
  
“I like to think of it as my guardian angel.”  
  
I looked up. There she was, as quick-appearing as my old boss. She lacked the slime and trickery, the smoke and mirrors feeling that shivered down your back in an awful way. Hers was more a mean beam of light through dust, a reaching blade of glass between parched earth. There was greed to her alright, but I knew already it was for vengeance on the behalf of others. I knew, but most of me refused to believe. There was no such thing as uncorrupted piety anymore, especially outside of where I came from.  
  
“Shotgun shells.” She announced, slamming down a crate of ammo.  
  
“And … Nuka Cola?” I raised my eyebrows at the wooden box she was pushing forward with her boot. The little glass bottles plinked with a strange, glowing liquid.  
  
“These are not for drinking.” She winked, setting her rifle aside and opening up her bag. She jumped down from the edge of the bed before I could offer to help, pointed to the snake symbol,  
  
“Ouroboros. Symbol of endless renewal, the cyclical nature of things.”  
  
“Read that in a book too, huh?”  
  
“Well, it got pretty boring in that metal womb they called home. Books and holotapes were all I had.” She faced away from the sun, shielding her brow from the sharpened, mist-ridden wind in a funny little salute motion, “It's not far, now. See that big great hill over there on the horizon? Most would just say it's a deathclaw or yao guai cave, but you walk down it—and bam. 101.”  
  
She half-lifted her pack in the way those not yet used to the constant tiredness always did, pursing her lips disapprovingly as she went on, “Thought I'd die there, you know.”  
  
For a moment I thought there was a chance our lives were somehow not-so-different. The jagged contrasts in our timelines could meet at a point. As with most things, I buried it away. Best not build camaraderie where it would only crash and burn.  
  
I grabbed up the few shotgun shells left in the ammo box, hoping this wasn't some trap. Dogmeat echoed my fears at the exact worst moment, barking into the distance in the direction of the store's front. Wilde was moving to my side in an instant, lifting her palm,  
  
“Don't worry. I've got this.”  
  
“Why the hell did you hire me if--”  
  
“Kindly, hush.” Her face fiercened. She moved quicker than me, almost quieter than a deathclaw, squinting down that fancy plasma rifle's sights like a natural. I followed at a distance and hovered a gloved hand over my own gun, but I wouldn't dare defy an order.  
  
The steps were careful, the air thick. The fog seemed more stubborn and stifling than before. Could hardly see my damned nose, even if I had one.  
  
It was when the most unbent of street lamps came into view and my eyes started to sting that I realized this heavy mist was no mist at all. It was smoke.  
  
“Holy shit.” Wilde whispered, a figure waning blue and as barely-there as her voice, “Tell me I'm not seeing things.”  
  
“You're not.”  
  
The scene beneath our feet was grisly. Even by Wasteland standards. A large pile of burning crates and chopped up shelving in a strange mound in the middle of the black pavement underneath the streetlamp. Various body parts were strewn through and about—mostly dismembered torsos and heads. All self-tattooed and spiky-haired. Strange claw marks had ripped through most of their flesh, deep open gouges in near-every limb. Their faces were all twisted up in pained expressions, their eye sockets gaping and empty.  
  
“Who would do this? Mutants? Other raiders?”  
  
“This ain't really mutant territory. Raiders shoot other raiders, sure... but they don't... do this to their own.”  
  
“They took the eyes. Why would they take the _eyes_.”  
  
“Dunno. But if I had to take a guess, I'd say this 'guardian angel' of yours is anything but.”  
  
“No. No. I've run across those caches innumerable times, but never this... It's just not possible.”  
  
Wilde shook her head, wincing as though she wanted to solidify that point. She may've been a good shot, may've been able to charm a snake into a mongooses' mouth, but she had a lot to learn about the dirt in people. With ugly, anything was possible.  
  
Dogmeat barked another warning.  
  
“There may be danger here.” I insisted gently, an attempt to get Wilde to leave.  
  
“Don't know if you noticed, Charon, but there's danger everywhere.”  
  
Why the first name basis, the playful mocking as though we were equals or friends? It made me insurmountably nervous, especially when I knew how that tune would change drastically with the knowledge that I knew at least three of the disembodied heads before us by name.  
  
Something beyond the smoke screeched as though to illustrate Wilde's rightness—a wordless sound that resounded and filled the empty lot with the bone-chill of a banshee and sliced through the shrouded veil of gray like a knife. It echoed unforgivably from all sides.  
  
Wilde and I both backed away. Something old and rarely felt, something gnarled and clawing rose in my throat and burned my bad shoulder. Fear. Something told me whatever was out there was a warning, maybe even an omen. A catalyst for everything to come rushing forth. I didn't know what 'everything' was, but a conviction chided that I probably deserved it, and I best resign to it.  
  
I could hear... drumming of some kind. Not thunder, not gunshots. Rapid and tapping.  
  
 _(… hooves ...)_  
  
Like the settling after a flashbang grenade, those sounds drifted away. Wilde had done the unthinkable, turned on that little radio of hers. Blasted it as loud as the dial on that pip-boy would turn.  
  
“ _\--listening to the adventures of Herbert 'Daring' Dashwood, and my stalwart ghoul manservant, Argyle! Today's episode: Escape From Paradise Falls._ ”  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
It was just a move to stop him from moving closer to that scream. To draw him out. Again.  
  
It was also, partially, a way to communicate with whoever was on the other side of the bizzare, smoking carnage.  
  
Charon blinked, his face confused, then angry:  
  
“Turn that damn thing off! You're really good at inviting trouble, you know that?”  
  
“Shh, sh. Listen. You hear that?”  
  
All quiet on the shop front.  
  
“Silence.” I affirmed brightly. It was hard to tell if he was listening. It seemed I was talking to myself even more than before. When he did answer, his voice was paired with wound up annoyance.  
  
“The odds... of...” He trailed off into a low, impatient grumble. He didn't want to argue. He'd been stuck too long following orders. Maybe being a touch more reckless and pissing him off enough would do him some help.  
  
 _Just try not to get your head shot off when it's time to part ways,_ my head chided. I flinched inwardly, not wanting to remember the risks  
  
 _(youll know it when you see it)_  
  
because risks made you hesitant, and I'd rather make a decision and be alive to regret it than hesitate and wind up abomination-chow.  
  
“What would you have me do?” I asked, taking up my pack again, “Plasma bullets are hard to come by, and I'm not wasting a bullet in this kind of visibility--”  
  
“We coulda just booked it.”  
  
“You would've shot. And hey, we're _alive_. Whoever it was didn't want us. No harm, no foul.”  
  
He nodded conflictingly, slouching.  
  
I whistled. Dogmeat paused from distractedly growling at a decapitated raider's empty sockets. She joined Charon's side, across from me. Across and distant, like he wished to remain a small scarred moon in my presence. He could remain cold and walled off as much as he liked—if Dogmeat trusted him, then so did I.  
  
The sky above was lit up like a blood orange. A stark contrast against all the choking smoke. If there was a god, he was stamping a cigar out above all our heads.  
  
“Red sky at morning, shepherd take warning,” I whispered.  
  
I was never very good at abiding the advice of dead men, anyway.  
  
“C'mon. Dust storms will get us before any of these poor souls do. Megaton's this way.”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“Welcome to Megaton! Do not be alarmed, the bomb has been disarmed!”  
  
I stared distrustingly at the ratty old bucket of bolts before me—it was different from Cerberus. Shaped more like a person, a tiny hat perched atop its conical shaped 'head', reflecting the sun hanging low from behind. It twitched and jerked as though it was contemplating shutting down at any moment.  
  
“These metal man things self-destruct?”  
  
“Huh? The securitron? ...No. Robco tech, I think. Harmless, mostly.”  
  
 _Mostly._ Hmph.  
  
The robot chirped and sparked its near-broke limbs menacingly, looping brightly again, “Welcome to Megaton! Please, do not be alarmed! The bomb has been deactivated!”  
  
Was I going nuts? Did that... thing just reiterate itself in a slightly different way?  
  
I leered down into its blank face, “I ain't afraid of youse.”  
  
It jerked its claw-like hands violently in response, causing its little cowboy hat to plop plainly into the dirt. A fake plastic sheriff's star glinted mockingly at my feet. Dogmeat sniffed.  
  
There was a dusty cough behind me, rattling like movement through bones. Wilde was kneeling down before the source of the worrying sound: a dying man, his body twisted against a misshapen pile of metal right outside Megaton's matching (though substantially larger) gates. His skin was cracked and color-worn—like an old candy bar wrapper or the depleted vein of a river. Empty, windswept, forgotten.  
  
Wilde brought her smooth hands to his face, shushing, comforting the stranger as he continued to wheeze. I didn't see what good false comfort would do for him now, but I stayed quiet. She lifted his eyelids, swiveled his head with a thumb, inspecting him with a shrewd eye.  
  
“Stomach..” He croaked weakly, “it burns...”  
  
Dried vomit caked his tattered shirt. Hair falling out. I hadn't seen a bird in many years, but I was sure vultures would descend upon him by sundown.  
  
“Is he ...ghoulifying?” Wilde asked.  
  
I shook my head, “Rad poisoning. He's a goner.”  
  
“Water... _please._ ” The unknown smooth clawed for her arms desperately. I growled. So did the dog.  
  
“Sh sh it's okay.” It was impossible to tell if her words were meant for me, Dogmeat or the dying pile of rags below.  
  
“What are you doing?” I asked as she reached into her pack, pulling out a pair of plastic water bottles. Their clear surfaces were marked with the words 'CLEAN' in large, black handwritten letters.  
  
“Whatever I can.” Wilde responded.  
  
I knew not to argue, I knew better. But I couldn't help myself:  
  
“That's _your_ water. That sucker's good as ashes. What's the _point?_ ”  
  
Her voice was aggravatingly gentle, “You help a man today, he'll remember it tomorrow.”  
  
“Tch. Or the next time he's thirsty.”  
  
She shot me a look, but before she could open her mouth to speak, a deep voice belted from above:  
  
“HEY! WILDE!”  
  
“Lucas.” She smiled and dropped everything she was doing, waving both arms above her head and jumping gleefully.  
  
I glanced upwards. A large and genial looking smoothskin waved from above. His skintone matched the strong, black-brown metal surfaces comprising the intimidating wall of the settlement. He wore a dusty brown cowboy hat, with the same plastic star centered above the brim as the bucket of bolts still chattering across from that dying man. Lucas shouted back down and revealed a white, wide grin offset by a roughly trimmed beard.  
  
I could pay no attention to the friendly conversation that followed between the two, as Wilde's rucksack gaped open and unattended nearby. The thirsty sonofagun had started to move shakily, reaching for the pack and grabbing for the water all at once.  
  
His hand froze like a spider trapped beneath a drinking glass as soon as I moved my boot over it.  
  
“You wanna know what it feels like to get your hand busted to pieces?”  
  
He trembled, shaking his head, terrified. Part of me felt satisfied by the reaction—it brought stability. The expected outcome, grounding me to reality. Part of me felt a pang of shame.  
  
“Take what she gave you and go.” He followed my suggestion, shambling upwards like a drunk and turning his back to me, moving towards the sun. The bottles of rare sustenance sloshed in his rattling hands.  
  
More shouting. _“Open the gates!”_ Rumbling, screeching—metal sparking against metal. Megaton's solid, rusting ebony doors sliding slowly apart.  
  
“Marvel, isn't it? They built it out of old planes. See the turbine engine? There, up above the gates.”  
  
It just looked like a bunch of scrap. I mumbled my sentiments, but Wilde didn't seem to hear me. She seemed so enchanted, I didn't want to repeat myself.  
  
“Hey...” Wilde hesitated, casting a glance to the pile of rubble to the left of us, “What happened to...”  
  
“Fella left. He... he said 'thank you'.”  
  
Wilde smiled.  
  
Didn't know the sense in lying to her. Guess I just didn't want to see her disappointed.  
 _Stupid._ I scolded myself, _don't. get. attached._  
  
The gates were up fully now. We headed inside. The interior of the fortress was decently large--not as impressive as Rivet city in size, but far more developed than places like Arefu to the northwest. The gates opened straight, steep downhill dirt path. Makeshift scrap shacks—their surfaces weathered and dented a thousand ways--surrounded the beaten, well traveled earth in congested stacks. A chaotic network of pipes, balconies and welded walkways snaked around the homes. Some of the settlers had begun to stop in their tracks or exit their dwellings, leaning on the walkways' railings out of curiosity. They watched Wilde the same way the hungry would eye a loaf of bread. They did not seem venomous or even fearful of me following close behind her, just fascinated. A few whispered to each other and even smiled. A pair of children waved. In an uncharacteristic moment of meekness, I waved back, hoping Wilde didn't turn around. Thankfully, she kept her eyes straight ahead.  
  
I focused on the '101' stitched into the back of her leather jumpsuit. Stepping close, but not too close.  
  
“This your first time here, son?” The large hand patting my shoulder startled me. The man named Lucas was grinning warmly at my side.  
  
“Er... yes.” I distanced myself from the touchy man subtly. I'd been outside the gates, but generally, ghouls avoided smoothskin settlements. Even traveling above ground was ill-advised. The subways were a mess, but at least they were an expected mess.  
  
Lucas continued, “Megaton's a little wary of outsiders, but any friend of The Wanderer's a friend of our little town. Name's Lucas. Lucas Simms. Lemme know if there's anything you need.”  
  
I didn't know how to react. My whole existence outside Underworld felt like struggling to untangle barbed wire with Wastelanders. Here was one swinging his arm around me and calling me 'son' before he knew my name. I was at least 50 years older, maybe more. The hospitality was almost laughable.  
  
Ahead, a haggard looking settler was cupping her hand over Wilde's. I couldn't hear them over the clanging of creaky metal as children chased each other along the upper walkways and some old man shouted from in front of a building marked with a crookedly painted 'atom' symbol. Wilde was shaking her golden spun head. The settler, however, looked determined.  
  
Lucas was still keeping pace with me. I could sense his stare—confused and mildly scrutinizing. Like he just didn't know what to make of things. As soon as I noticed the pair of stimpaks my baffled looking boss had received from someone who likely had nothing else of worth, I knew. These people were not handing me kindness and niceties out of the goodness of their all-accepting hearts. The people were calm and holstered for 'The Lone Wanderer'. That hazy radio-static hero with the Vault 101 jumpsuit. And by extension, I wouldn't get shot at.  
  
This wasn't a simple guard gig in the least. She was protecting me just as much as I was protecting her, whether she was aware of it or not. Safe passage in the land of the living. I didn't know whether to appreciate it or hate it.  
  
“Your dog looks like she found a spot of trouble.” Lucas mentioned conversationally.  
  
Dogmeat was panting tiredly at my feet, eyes on Wilde winding her way back up the path.  
  
“Ran into a slew of mutants at the old hospital in Vernon Square...” Wilde called, “Poor thing persevered, but she deserves a rest. Brought her back to see if someone would watch over her for just a little while.”  
  
“Doc Church could use some company to cheer him, I think. Be good for his patients, too.” Lucas nodded.  
  
“Thank you, Sheriff.”  
  
Lucas tipped his hat in response, whistling lowly. Dogmeat perked up, but not without whining at Wilde first.  
  
“Go on.” She said. Dogmeat scuttled off, close behind Lucas' feet.  
  
Wilde then turned her attention to me, “Gotta drop some stuff off. My house is this way.”  
  
The path opened into a large circle, the stacks of shacks and outer walls grew taller and more dizzying. Lanterns and tiny lights were strung overhead, already quietly burning in the almost-dusk light of the cloudy sky, their delicateness a stark contrast among the hulks of metal people called 'home'. Where Underworld had order, here there was mostly chaos. Sloppy signs and crooked doors. A greasy looking stand right on the corner of where the path and the cul-de-sac met stood out—a hanging neon sign in chinese characters.  
  
What stood out more was the fact that I understood what they meant.  
  
Perplexity at my own mind got swept under quick. The sight of a small atomic warhead, wedged into the earth and surrounded by a tiny pool of sick green—irradiated water. The old fellow you could hear shouting from all the up at the entrance was balancing on a crate in front of it, the painted atom symbol above his head on a silver of metal nailed above a sad looking entrance. A group of settlers had gathered to hear him speak.  
  
“You got a goddamn _bomb_ out here? That's sleeping death!” I couldn't hide my shock.  
  
“Town was built around it. Relax, it's disarmed.”  
  
“How do you know? If they told the truth this wouldn't exactly be prime real estate...”  
  
“ _I_ disarmed it. This way.”  
  
The old fart's gibberish ceased for just a moment, then his crazed eyes glazed over to me:  
  
“See here! A chosen Son of Atom! He hath passed through the fiery eye unscathed, and ascended! No longer bogged by sickness, stripped of the worldly burden of time! Frozen! Between this life and death, to bring wisdom and--”  
  
And blah and blah-de-blah-de-blah.  
  
“Children of Atom,” Wilde explained, “They worship the bomb. I guess they like you.”  
  
I bowed my head made lifted my hands as though to sweep hair from my forehead, but really I just shielding away from the hyperfocused eyes of the crowd. Crazies, all of 'em. Ghoulification was no gift. It was not bestowed, or a condition to be coveted. No use crying over it, either. As with most things, it just was.  
  
We passed an elderly couple on the way up the nearest walkway. Old man whistling a patriotic pre-war song. His wife smiled at Wilde, then me. An eyebot—a spherical radio type machine bobbing along cheerfully--accompanied them. The Enclave radio played clearly from it, “President Eden” babbling on nonsense about how 'the Enclave would save America' and what not. Hardly any soul listened to that shit anymore. It was senseless myth, a far-off farce. If there was any form of powerful underground government out there I sure as hell hadn't seen it yet.  
  
We turned left on the walkway. What Wilde called home was on the second 'level', overlooking most of the town's activity. Plain and square, it appeared unremarkable from the outside.  
  
On the inside though, it was apparent this lady had a problem.  
  
A serious hoarding problem.  
  
“Ok. Before you say anything, it's not a mess... it's a sophisticated _system_.” Wilde's voice trailed off as she stepped lightly over several piles of pre-war junk before dropping her rucksack down with a clank.  
  
I stood in the doorway, mouth hanging open for a bit. Never had I seen a place so big, yet filled with so much crap. The large square room was packed. Towered Vault-Tec terminal parts dominated one wall coupled with homemade shelves of books—most of them burnt beyond recognition. A funny looking stand with a few old Vault-Tec bobbleheads sat against the opposite wall. I made my way over to it, (taking care to avoid all the holotapes and old newspaper scraps scattered along the floor) bent in front of it, tapped one gently with a finger. The bobblehead's wobbling cartoon features smiled back, winking and frozen in a perpetual thumbs-up.  
  
“Really rare, those Vault Boys. I'm trying to find them all.”  
  
Wilde was leaning in the doorway of what look like some kind of kitchen. Another small room next to it. Restroom, I guessed.  
  
“There's med supplies upstairs.” She pointed. Balconies surrounded the main room on all sides. A nuka-cola machine, workbenches, a medical station that almost rivaled Barrows' setup. Little strings of light matching the ones outside hung every which way from the cold scrap metal ceiling.  
  
“Moira... the lady at the general store? ...She tried to hang some lewd lamp up there... I had to take it down...” Wilde blushed and fiddled at her pip-boy absentmindedly. She recovered quickly, “Bathroom's down here. Plumbing works and everything. Kitchen's no good yet but I'm working on it... There's a locker right here with ammo and extra guns and everything.”  
  
She motioned to the lockers beside the bathroom's closed door.  
  
“Big place.” I replied. Most people I knew were lucky to have a cot to call their own, “You rooming with someone?”  
  
“Well, there's Dogmeat. Other than that, just Wadsworth.”  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
Charon gave me a strange look.  
  
“Wadsworth!” I called, “Come meet Charon.”  
  
Wadsworth zipped down the stairs. Wadsworth was a RobCo Mr. Handy—same as my childhood robot, Andy.  
  
Charon's face quickly switched to “grim frown mode”,  
  
“Another robot.” He tensed.  
  
“Good to see you're alive and well, madam!” Wadsworth chirped pleasantly.  
  
“Wadsworth, this is my... Charon relax, he's harmless. He came with the place.”  
  
Charon crossed his arms obstinately, “It's got a _circular saw_ attached to one of its.... tentacle... things.”  
  
“It's quite useful for slicing cake!” Wadsworth quipped, “And the occasional amputation, as needed.”  
  
This wasn't going well.  
  
“Um... Wadsworth? Why don't you tell a joke.”  
  
“Ah, yes. Ahem. ...Two atoms are in a bar. One says, 'I think I lost an electron.' The other says, 'Are you sure?' To which the other replies, 'I'm positive.'”  
  
I laughed. Charon remained unmoved:  
  
“I don't get it.”  
  
“Without an electron an atom becomes... you... you still don't...” I tucked some hair behind my ear, “Nevermind. Let's regroup. I have a duffle bag around here... somewhere...”  
  
“Don't need it. Got pockets.” He raised his hand, walking over to my own pack and stooping over it, “...But may I make a suggestion?”  
  
“You don't need to ask, alright? Just _talk_. I need ...input. That's what I hired you for in the first place.”  
  
He rubbed at the back of his neck nervously, staring off at some old ads I'd hung up on the wall to try and liven up the place. Then he straightened, stiff as a board. Nodded. He still seemed to have trouble looking me in the eye,  
  
“You need to travel lighter.”  
  
“Ok!” Finally, something. If this partnership was going to work, we had to communicate.  
  
He unzipped the main compartment of my plain, reinforced backpack.  
  
“It's just books in here.”  
  
“Yeah, well. Books are important.”  
  
“Can you eat a book. Can you kill someone with a book.” He looked up at me with those intensely blue eyes.  
  
“Technically, with enough force—Oh, fine.”  
  
It took quite some time, but we got through it. Pretty much everything but med supplies and what I found in the cache at Super Duper Mart went on a shelf or in the lockers.  
  
“Fixer?” He asked. There was a note of confusion in his voice at the sight of the small tin of pills meant for treating chem addicts.  
  
“For Gob. Keep it.”  
  
“You know Gob?”  
  
I nodded. I wanted to mention that Gob was right here, in Megaton, but Charon pried no more into that subject—he merely stood up, mentioning I was out of food. He walked tentatively to the kitchen (if you could really call it that), carefully stepping around holotapes and other various knick-knacks I had yet to find a place for. He returned with a few dry vault rations and every single box of Fancy Lad Snack cakes I had.  
  
“Essential.” He growled, dropping the boxes down before my cross-legged position.  
  
“Is... this... all you eat? Really?” I pointed at the Snack Cakes.  
  
“ _Essential._ ” He reminded.  
  
Jesus, how was he able to function? How was he even _alive_?  
  
Regardless, I packed away the junk food. Charon had moved over to a bookself, distracted for a moment. He stared at a framed picture of my father and I'd taken years before (shot by Jonas), then to the larger, framed cross-stitched piece my father had insistently shown me everyday since I could remember.  
  
I quoted the etched stitching out loud, almost automatically:  
  
“Revelation 2-1-6: I am the Alpha and Omega,  
the beginning and the end,  
I will give unto him that is athirst of the fountain of the waters of life,  
freely.”  
  
“...My mother made it.” I finished quietly.  
  
“No picture of her?” He inquired.  
  
“She died giving birth to me. That little verse is all I have. I try... I try to...” I looked down at my hands, picking at the callouses forming on my flesh for just a moment.  
  
I tried remembering her face. Her voice. On very quiet nights, I swore that I could. Sometimes it was a blessing, others it was a sharp and stabbing kind of pain.  
  
“I think she would've been proud of you.”  
  
Charon's comment was unexpected, almost unbearably so. A wave of strange emotions welled up inside me. Silence settled between us for a short while. Nothing but the sounds of Wadsworth puttering about upstairs, the creak of metal and some chatter heard through the thin walls outside. It was not uncomfortable, but it felt deep, resonating. In fact, it was the first time I didn't feel the need to speak since I could recall stepping out of the vault. It felt comfortable.  
  
“Charon?” I wondered why my voice was so soft-sounding. Maybe it was because I didn't want to break that moment just yet. But I had to know, I needed answers. And this seemed like the right time to ask.  
  
He turned his head, seemed surprised by the tone of the question.  
  
I took a deep breath, hoping that what I was about to say didn't press to hard, “About Ahzrukhal...”  
  
“I don't know how I came to be in his service.” He said quickly. His voice was gruff again.  
  
“No... I … Why'd you kill him?”  
  
Charon blinked.  
  
“Pardon me, I just don't want to make the same mistake.” I could feel my voice shake. Had I said too much? Too quickly? It was so difficult to tell here. Usually it was easy, figuring people out. With Charon, I was finding little to grasp onto.  
  
“He was an evil bastard.” Was all he would say.  
  
Again, silence. But this time, I felt the urge to fill it with something, anything. I looked down at my nervously fiddling hands and blurted the first guilty, “evil” that sank into my mind like a rock:  
  
“When I was young, I spit on a sweet roll and gave to a boy I didn't like.”  
  
Wadsworth could not make him laugh, but for some mysterious reason, that did it. It started as a half-chortle, crescendoing up to full howl. Like an old furnace starting up—rusty, a little frightening, but bursting with warmth. His teeth were straight, slightly yellowed, but his smile was wide and comforting. It brought a beaming sort of grin to my own face in return.  
  
The laughter came to a full stop abruptly. Charon cleared his throat. We worked in silence the rest of the time, rearranging everything within the confines of my pack.  
  
“We can't live on fancy lads alone.” I mentioned. Silently, Charon reached into his leather jacket. He revealed three thin, brown square packets of varying size. He hid it away so quickly I could only catch a glimpse of one label--'MEAL, COMBAT READY'.  
  
I wanted to ask where he found those, but I had a hunch already. We had similar things back in the Vault. Instead, I concentrated on repacking the Nuka Cola bottles I'd acquired back at the Super Duper Mart. Flashes of the slaughtered raiders entered my mind. The pounding of drums and an otherworldly scream, suddenly shifting into the sirens of Vault 101's sirens alerting the guards of a young woman with a BB Gun and a softball bat. Kill on sight, the loudspeakers had commanded.  
  
Friends, boys I'd dated, girls I'd passed notes with in class. All shouting and banging from within little windowed rooms, _“This is all your damn vault. You and your no-good father.”_ The aforementioned childhood bully whose sweet roll I'd ruined on my tenth birthday—begging me for help with his drunken mother as radroaches overtook her, getting me halfway through the trek to The Outside in return. Even gave me his jacket.  
  
“Careful with them bottles.” It was Charon drawing me out of the bothersome, hiccup-y images this time around. It took me a moment, but I realized I'd been clutching two bottles by the caps so tightly that the skin between my thumb and forefingers were an angry red. I put them into the bag shakily, zipping it closed.  
  
“You'll get used to it.” He said simply. But there was a little something like a lie in his voice.  
  
“How?”  
  
“Welp.” He grunted, rising to his feet and adjusting his shotgun, the belt of pouches around his waist, “Best thing to do is find someplace or something to help you forget. Even it's just for a little while.”  
  
I rose along with him, rubbing the pain away from my hands as I thought of the perfect place. “I've got it! C'mon.”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
The Saloon stood on the highest landing, centered over Megaton like a lopsided temple. The slanted sign above it read 'GOB'S SALOON'. 'Gob' was a recent change, judging by the dripping red paint over some other faded name I couldn't make out underneath.  
  
Wilde slipped through the small crowd chattering around the entrance easily. I followed behind, ignoring the raised eyebrows and low whispers. Bent in the doorway, breathed in the smoke. Inside was livelier than any other bar I'd seen. Swathes of orange-y light provided by several lanterns warmed the rusted interior. Clusters of settlers were gathered around dusty wooden tables. There was some cowboy fellow playing to them on a ratty looking guitar, hollering some song about a house in 'New Orleans'.  
  
I could barely fathom it, but there he was. Gob. Happily taking the fixer from Wilde and handing her a small white envelope in exchange. Smiling tiredly from behind the counter as he rubbed at a dirtied glass with an old rag. A curved woman with short, spiky red hair was grabbing Wilde by the arm, smiling and chattering genially. Leading her away to a table in the corner.  
  
Before I could say a word or make a move to protect her like I'd meant to, Gob was shouting my name jovially:  
  
“Charon?! Holy sh-- Ey! Ey Cher get over here ya old bastard!”  
  
What was the harm? Redhead didn't seem to be with ill-intent, Wilde was more than capable of handling her own in a town like this. I grabbed a rickety metal stool at the bar farthest from people mingling nearby.  
  
Gob shook my hand and leaned in to pat my back. He was a neurotic and slouchy kid, young by our standards, he'd turned around twenty years ago. Or was it more than that? I hardly knew. It was tough being post-war. Most times suicide hit the youthful ones before any of the horrors outside. Shock of the scarring, Barrows always deduced.  
  
Gob's green eyes brimmed with shock. Words spilled out fast. He was talkative around his own. I seemed to be the exception to that rule.  
  
“Nice to see another ghoul up here. Most of 'em room down at the Church of Atom. Although they're not much for conversation unless you're looking to get converted. You're not...?”  
  
“No.” I replied shortly.  
  
“Well then what are you doing out here? What brought you outta that corner?” Little radio on the counter interjected loudly with static. Gob leaned, banging and cursing on it with a fist.  
  
“Change of management.” I responded. Gob composed himself and chuckled, asking me if I'd like a drink. I declined, lit a cigarette instead. He moved along to the next question playfully, “Didn't think Ahzrukhal'd ever fire your lazy ass. You a gun for hire now? Fellow named Mr. Burke was looking for one... he skipped town a few weeks back, but--”  
  
“Ahzrukhal had an unfortunate accident. Wilde's my employer now.”  
  
“Funny. Same thing happened to my old boss. God rest his soul.” There was an obvious note of satisfaction in Gob's voice. He looked over his shoulder and stared at the redhead next to Wilde. Sweet on her. Hell, sick in love, I'd venture to say. Poor joe, “You take care of Wilde. She's good people. Helped Nova get off Med-X.”  
  
He was getting lost in her. Sighing. She was telling Wilde a secret. Wilde laughed, a thin brown cigar between her lips. All the while her arms were crossed, obviously uncomfortable with something. Her eyes were locked on the cowboy.  
  
I coughed, trying to distract Gob and myself, “Carol will be happy to know you're doing well for yourself. Got yourself an entertainer, even. Ninth Circle couldn't even claim as much.”  
  
“Ninth Circle was a shithole.” he growled, “No offense... and that crazy cowboy wasn't hired, he's just been camping out here for days--Hey, Orpheus!! Pipe down, will ya? Some of us are trying to hear the damn news!”  
  
The cowboy in the corner crooned and played louder.  
  
“Throw him out.” I looked at Gob.  
  
He rubbed his brow nervously, “Can't. Nova feels sorry for him. I don't trust him. Says he's a bounty hunter but he's looking for just _one_ escaped slave. Claims he's from Los.”  
  
“Texas? Bullshit. Los got blown half to hell. Even still, there's nothin' but rads out there. How come he's not one of us?”  
  
“You're telling me! He's got even more colorful stories than that. A working motorcycle, rare weapons, alien abduction. Just you wait.”  
  
“I'd rather not.” I quipped.  
  
“I always liked you Charon, even if everyone said you were scary. ...You know, in 25 years I've never heard you talk so much.”  
  
I shut up quicker than a mutant's trap. Gob liked anyone who showed him a semblance of kindness, but I was getting far too comfortable since I'd left Underworld. Showing a side that was against the rules. Maybe it was the light of the saloon, maybe it was the damn music. Maybe it was Wilde's infecting brightness. Either way, it was bad for my job—bad for her.  
  
Wilde and the gal Gob called 'Nova' were getting up from their seats in the corner just as the cowboy's braying tapered off into quiet, labored clapping from the audience. He bowed low, dipping his ebony hat low to a reveal a sweaty mess of short, wavy brown hair atop his tan skull. 'WAR IS GOOD BUSSINESS' was written along the instrument's body in huge, sloppy handwriting. Business was spelled wrong. He was muscled and chubby, barrel-chested, with a weathered yet somehow babied face. At first glance, he seemed cocky and dull. He was not exactly a threat, but I disliked him almost immediately.  
  
Gob voiced my dread as The Cowboy tailed and groped Nova flirtatiously, who was making her way through the crowd back to the bar with Wilde.  
  
“Oh, here we go.”  
  
“Howdy. Don't think I've seen ya'll round here.” The crooner tipped his hat in Wilde's direction. Nova giggled charmingly. Surprisingly, the boss did not. She appeared unusually wary and off-put. She took the empty barstool next to me as though she was stepping around a landmine. It put me a little on edge, but I could hide it better. Or so I thought.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
I would not take my eyes off the man with the guitar, even if I disliked the look of him. The stubborn part of me was convinced he was here to kill Gob. The first friend I'd made out of 101, a friend I'd killed a man for. A man named Colin Moriarty, a man who terrified the town with greed, beat on Gob, and made a fatal mistake when he waved and teased knowledge of my birth outside the vault in my face without concrete answers. Nova and I had done so together--'happy accident', Lucas Simms had called it.  
  
Colin Moriarty was the first man I'd killed up close, leaving me with the occasional shakes and flashbacks. But all's well that ends well. Townspeople seemed happy to hand Gob their caps instead, and Lucas had one less burden to carry on his hefty shoulders.  
  
But Colin had friends. Mr. Burke--who'd mysteriously skipped town after I'd left. Jericho, who more or less stopped showing when he realized Nova wouldn't give him the time of day with Colin no longer breathing down her neck.  
  
And now this stranger with sad puppy eyes, a crooked-toothed charismatic smile and a guitar strapped to his back along with a sniper rifle—pacing around almost day and night. My father always told me life had little to do with coincidence. “Formulas and miracles”, he forever insisted.  
  
The only formula I saw here was one of foolishness or ill-intent. And one of the first things you learn about The Wastes is: the foolish never last very long. The reckless? The heartless? The stubborn? Sure. But fools could count their days on one hand.  
  
“Name's Remington,” The cowboy prattled on in a slow, deep drawl. He stretched his hand out to Charon, who in turn gave him a mean look and turned back around, taking another drag on his cigarette. The cowboy recovered, taking off his hat and running the same hand through his hair, “Er. Don't know if ya'll heard, but I'm lookin' for someone. Someone by the name of Mei Wong. Sometimes calls herself 'Sally Hatchet'. She--”  
  
“Knock it off,” Gob spoke up from behind his post, “We don't take kindly to slavers.”  
  
I nodded firmly. Charon still had his back turned, eyes cast down. Inhaling. Exhaling. A thought crossed my mind that perhaps he thought of me that way. I bit my lip.  
  
Remington placed his hands on his hips defensively. His sleeveless tan duster flared back like the plumage of some offended peacock, revealing a strange pistol on his hip I'd never encountered before. It looked something like a pre-war toy. Retro by design, only shiny and new—brushed silver with stripes of teal light along what one could deduce was the barrel. Plasma? Maybe. It most certainly didn't shoot regular bullets. It begged questions, but I chocked it up to it being my inexperience with post-war weapons.  
  
“I already told you, I'm a _bounty hunter_. This woman is wanted across the Mojave for robbery, arson, crimes against--”  
  
“What? Is there some kinda law down there where you come from?” A stranger listening in on the conversation chortled. Laughter roared from a few others.  
  
Remington looked flustered and began twisting the brim of his hat with his dirty hands, “N-Now, now,” he stammered, “This is no time for jokes 'n pokes. She's quite dangerous and--”  
  
“Is it true?” Nova perked up as she strutted up next to Gob behind the counter. Gob smiled at her like he was drunk. She didn't seem to notic, “Her eyes can make men turn to stone? Everything she touches falls to ash?”  
  
“Nah, but let me re-it-er-ate: quite dangerous. There's truth in fiction.” Nova's eyes widened and Remington seemed satisfied that he was being taken seriously again, “You two seen 'er? She's short, muscular. Black hair. Got a ghoulified horse. Name of Ghost.”  
  
“You're really pulling it out your ass, now.” Gob laughed, “There's no such thing as a ghoulified horse.”  
  
Charon and I exchanged a quick and knowing glance. There was something like fear between our seats. Electricity.  
  
“Come on, sweet cheeks, speak up.” Remington snapped his fingers at me.  
  
My eyes and mouth formed into thin lines, “Don't call me that, please.”  
  
He ignored me. “How 'bout you, handsome? Huh?”  
  
Charon stayed silent, calmly stamping out his cigarette in a nearby ashtray.  
  
“Quiet type. Alright.” Remington stepped forward, moved so that he was right next to my partner. He bent low so that he was whispering right into his unmoving ear, “What's your name, hoss? Did you hear 'em? The hooves? Ya'll believe me. I can see it.”  
  
Charon refused to move. He didn't even blink.  
  
Remington frowned and stood up straight. He tipped his hat in my direction, “What's with your boyfriend? You two quarrelin' or some shit? Reckon you get this monk to talk, sweethear--?”  
  
"He's not--"  
  
The angry groan of a bar stool as it moved backwards. A quick flash of color and sound as Charon proceeded to slam Remington's face into the wood surface of the bar. I watched, terrified as he began to pick up the stool he'd been sitting on moments earlier.  
  
Jesus. He was going to kill him.  
  
“Don't!” Nova yelped.  
  
“Stop!! _Please_.”  
  
If there was any doubt that he was brainwashed left, all that swept away in a moment. He sat back down immediately, like a violent machine unplugged.  
  
Remington stumbled back and clutched his nose. There was no panic in the room now, just stony watching eyes. Most of Megaton was going to side with an acquaintance of mine over any passing traveler. Like mine, Megaton's trust was hard earned and even harder lost.  
  
The cowboy swiveled on his feet close to the entrance. He half-crouched and stumbled like an aggravated brahmin. For a split second I thought he was prepped to charge forth and retaliate. Several had their hands and postures primed for something, anything. Nova shook, lifting her hands to her mouth.  
  
A long, low wailing sound escaped Remington's mouth. I could hardly believe it. He did nothing but cry. Everyone except myself, Nova, and Charon rolled their eyes and turned their backs.  
  
“Oh Harold, not again.” Gob sighed and waved his rag out to me, “Would you take him outside, please? Whether it's from drinkin' or fightin' he always gets like this at some point. Really kills the vibe.”  
  
I moved toward the sobbing mass on the dusty floor, lifting his right arm and gently steering him towards the outdoors, now shrouded in night.  
  
Charon took his other arm carefully.  
  
I hissed, “What the _hell_ was that?”  
  
“I think I got a splinter in my nose....” Remington sobbed.  
  
“You told him not to call you … that name.” Charon blinked, as though he'd just done the most logical thing he could ever think to do.  
  
“I also _didn't_ tell you to go rabid on people in bars! Or is that just a bad habit I don't know about? A funny little side effect of Ahzrukhal's influence?” I gave him a stern look.  
  
His face seemed to collapse with guilt. We exited to the 'balcony' out front, settling Remington down against the wall near the entrance.  
  
Charon argued then, “You didn't like the look of him. I didn't like the look of him. You can't just give people the benefit of the doubt whenever the whim hits you. It's... it's idiotic!”  
  
“You're fired.” I snapped.  
  
“Wai— _What?!_ ”  
  
“You heard me.” I raised my hands and stepped back from him, “Go back. Go back home to Underworld. It's done. I'm over. Do whatever the hell you want.”  
  
“You can't just... It doesn't work like that. I need...”  
  
He looked up at the murky sky, rubbing at his brow, his shoulder. Something was difficult for him, gnawing at his insides.  
  
“What? What is it?” I should've been more tender. But I had to nip this impulsive, violent streak of his in the bud.  
  
“I need a fuckin' job, alright? This job.” He nearly shouted. It was the first time his voice seemed uneven, “I got nowhere to go. I'm pretty much cast out of the only warm place for a ghoul after what I did. And out here? Heh. Without 'The Lone Wanderer' I'm just another fucking zombie. 'Aim for the head'. And they might as well, cause without work I am _nothing._ ”  
  
Silence. Laughter and drunken shouts swelled and moved from within the saloon. Shadows passed over us. Charon looked down and shuffled his feet like a nervous child. In the light cast from the small threaded bulbs above and from inside Gob's Saloon, I could swear I saw what he looked like before whatever hell tore him up and spit him out. Something gentle and sad. Soft and proud. Someone with a clear and moral code.  
  
“Alright.” I took a deep breath. “Alright. But no more fisticuffs with strangers, alright?”  
  
“What if they--”  
  
“Just ...consult me.”  
  
Charon sucked his teeth finally, “As you wish.”  
  
A cough from the wall nearby. “Don't s'pose one a ya'll could hand me that rag anytime 'fore next Sunday?”  
  
“Oh my God!” I rushed over, holding the rag out to Remington's face. Gently patted his bleeding nose, “Tilt your head back. Not that much. Okay. There you go.”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
Nova rushed out, nearly jumping up and down, “Wilde? Wilde! Three Dog's talking about your Dad on the radio! Quick.”  
  
Wilde's eyes were the size of milk bottle lids. She handed me the bloodied rag, asking if I could take her place for a moment as she zipped away from the scene.  
  
Nova did not follow her inside immediately. She whistled to get my attention.  
  
She regarded me coldly, "If you hurt her..." She finished by motioning an elegant finger across her neck.  
  
"I didn't.... I wouldn't..." But she was already long gone. Jesus. What kind of a town was this.  
  
Begrudgingly I knelt before the man. “I don't have any diseases,” I assured him.  
  
“I was raised by ghouls in Los,” The cowboy took the rag from my hand, “You can spare me the smoothskin diplomacy. ...You ever seen an alien before, Hoss?”  
  
Kid was delusional. I'd only broken his nose, that shouldn't have rattled his head too hard. I didn't argue. Let him keep his comforting lies, I thought.  
  
 _(the benefit of the doubt)_  
  
I blinked, “I'm.... er... sorry I hurt you.”  
  
“You're an overzealous merc. S'happens.”  
  
Something like that, anyways.  
  
“I ain't a slaver.” Remington said quietly.  
  
“I know.” I said, after a small moment of hesitation. This was the first time I'd ever had more than a threatening conversation with a man I'd punched. It felt hellishly unlike me. And yet, I felt better. A little lighter than before. Things kept getting stranger and stranger.  
  
“Where is she? Mei.”  
  
“Near the Super-Duper Mart. But she's probably long gone by now.”  
  
“Dammit." Remington cried fresh tears, "I loved her. I _love_ her. She stole everything but what's on my back. Just wanted to... I don't know, man, I'm a mess.” He sobbed and choked for a few minutes. I told him he was fool. He huffed,  
  
“I know.”  
  
I helped him up to his feet, awkwardly shook his hand when he offered it a second time. Fella gripped like a python. Blood was drying under his nose and on his teeth but he still grinned sheepishly.  
  
Wilde returned from the saloon, staring into her Pip Boy's screen and marching fast.  
  
“He didn't mean harm.” I said to her.  
  
“Good.” She smiled at me, then turned to the cowboy, “Are you alright, sir? I have to get moving.”  
  
The cowboy kid revealed a joint from within a pocket beneath his duster, “I'll be fine. And It's Remington. Remy to my pals.” Not fifteen minutes before Wilde had been eyeing him like the devil and I'd smashed his face into a counter. Boy really was a dunce. Then again, we'd helped him in spite of it. Maybe we all were fools somehow.  
  
Wilde nodded shortly, “You pay Gob, alright?”  
  
“Yes, ma'am.”  
  
Wilde threw him a stimpak and began to move down a ramp.  
  
“Ya'll be careful!” Remington's voice rang after us, laughing almost hysterically, “Mei Wong's a live wire! You're lucky you ain't meatloaf already!”  
  
We passed the Church of Atom where the madman sat atop his perch, cheering me on. I turned a blind ear to it. I was genuinely interested now, where The Lone Wanderer's father might've gone, if he was still alive. Buying into the hero myth.  
  
“What'd Three Dog say?” I had to liven my steps to keep up.  
  
She slowed down a bit, double-checked ammo in her belt distractedly, “He mentioned Dad's name... that he'd stopped by GNR studios. Three Dog mentioned his satellite and the shit connection. Then, the rest cut out. Damn that static.”  
  
“So you're headed there in the morning?” I asked.  
  
“No, we're heading there _now._ ”  
  
“Woah woah. You can't make that trek at night. It's dark out.”  
  
“Oh!” Wilde exclaimed, “It's dark? Gee! Did anyone ever tell you that you're quite tall?”  
  
“Smartass.” I countered, “You said you needed advice. I'm giving it. What about Mei Wong? After what we saw at Super--”  
  
Wilde shook her head, “Stories!”  
  
“ _You're_ a story. Isn't some of it at least a little true?”  
  
She avoided my gaze persistently, “Look, _I'm going._ Either give me an alternative or stay back here with Dogmeat. This is too important to delay.”  
  
There was no way I would stay back in Megaton and sit comfortable. I pressed my mind for a while. We were nearly to the settlement's gates by the time an idea came. It was risky, but it could work:  
  
 _(river styx)_  
  
“The subway.”


	4. See You On a Dark Night

**Barrows**  
  
The sound of a brush violently scrubbing away at marble stopped. Carol paused for just a moment, wiping sweat from her frizzy stranded brow. I watched the unsettling mixture of weak soap bubbles and blood glisten in the soft light.  
  
“Leo... If I knew what you meant by Charon 'losing it'...”  
  
I ignored her and the attachment she had for the Vault Gal. Instead, I turned my attention to the sounds of Patches scuttering and moping right outside the broken door, in front of the flimsy velvet red rope between two golden poles Carol had set up earlier. The only denotation we had for an ugly crime scene.  
  
“Patchy,” I shouted with annoyance in my tone as I grabbed another blood splattered glass from the shelf, “Unless something's on fire, buzz off.”  
  
Patches shuffled his feet, shyly kicking at one of The Ninth Circle's broken doors before poking his head in the doorframe,  
  
“But.... Doc... there's a _tourist_. She wants a drink.”  
  
“So? Tell her we ain't got none. And don't come round here again unless there's an emergency. Go see Nurse Graves if anyone's hurt.”  
  
Patches dragged his feet away. There was an angry slosh as Carol dropped her brush into a sad blue bucket at her feet.  
  
“Leonard. I _know_ you heard me.” She snapped.  
  
I looked back at her sullenly. Her emerald eyes, rimmed with purple and green-hued flesh, glared back accusingly. The same eyes that trembled at me over two hundred years prior. The first human eyes I'd seen since the horrors of Germantown. Back when I was a regular old joe--an injured doctor staring deliriously back at a young bomb shelter survivor who'd been searching for a “safe place”. She was a regular joe, too. We all were. As more people arrived, as the ghoulification started, she was there. We knew what to do.  
  
“You're using her.” Carol glowered. Anger in her gaze searing.  
  
Carol and I built this place. We made it what it was. She was the daughter I never had. I owed her answers. I owed her everything.  
  
“I wouldn't be doing this if I didn't think it'd _work_.” I argued, “You know nothing about Charon, nothing about....”  
  
“Charon doesn't know anything about Charon.” She hissed, barely hiding the harshness now.  
  
“Carol, please. Trust me.”  
  
She cocked her head in a questioning way. I shook mine. Charon had to figure his past out himself. I couldn't risk bringing anyone into his secrets. Too dangerous.  
  
“If he so much as splits a hair on that smoothskin's head...” Carol retrieved her brush from the bucket, “It's your blood I'll be scrubbing at next.”  
  
“Cool.”  
  
Carol and I both turned, alarmed by the sudden and friendly interjection.  
  
Ugh. The aforementioned tourist.  
  
Her dark eyes stung acutely like pinpricks at the back of your skull. Eyebrows as thick as my hair was gone. She was dressed in ragged, bloodstained clothing that appeared hand-stitched. Thin strands of shiny, black hair stuck out from beneath a solemn gray scarf atop her head. She tugged at a matching gray scarf at her neck with a nervous grace.  
  
“Don't look at me.” She snapped. Her voice was annoyed and warning. In spite of the tone, it sounded like honey dripping over an opiate. It commanded you cling to every word. Her charisma was reminiscent of our last visitor—but tempered with something far more sharp and sinister.  
  
Carol and I averted our eyes to the ground immediately. The stranger removed the large scarf around her neck--revealing belts layered with chrome and grenades, a tattoo on her neck.  
  
“Ma'am, we're closed.” Carol was the braver, finally daring to speak.  
  
A devilish, well-humored smile, “I didn't see a sign on the door. ..What's left of it, anyways. I only need a drink.”  
  
She wasn't from around here, her speech lacked that little transatlantic flair. Her forehead shined with tiny rivers of sweat. Her eyes were dilated to wide, black pools. Her knuckles rapped upon the surface of the bar shakily. Not out of fear. But I wasn't concerned with her origins, her hypnotizing muscular frame or what substance she was on. Mostly, I was fascinated by the tattoo on the nape of her neck.  
  
“What would you like?” I asked cautiously.  
  
“Barrows--” Carol snapped behind me angrily. I cleared my throat and she quieted, going back to cleaning the wall. Our disagreements rivaled the best of them, but she'd understand. Eventually.  
  
“Surprise me.” The stranger answered. She pointed at the ugly stain on the back wall, “You shouldn't clean it. It's a good color.”  
  
I started to grab a clean glass from the shelf, searching for something to serve.  
  
“Not that one. I want one of the bloody ones.”  
  
Carol cast me a bewildered, suspicious expression. I shrugged, obliging the woman at the barstool. I settled for a Nuka Cola. Everyone liked those. Even weird smoothskins.  
  
“You wouldn't happen to have a spare kidney, would you?” I asked as conversationally as I could, passing her the drink and a stained glass.  
  
The stranger's eyes glowered in silence.  
  
“Forget I asked.” I backed away defensively. The stranger unwrapped the scarf about her head and neck, using it to take the lid off the cola with a decidedly loud 'pop'. She poured a little in the glass, sipped it like whiskey.  
  
“Nice tattoo.” I pointed at her neck, “Do it yourself?”  
  
She nodded, patting at the sweat on her face with the lonely gray cloth.  
  
“Chinese right? What's it say?”  
  
Her eyes turned guarded again, “Gee-ah.”  
  
“Home.” I said half-mindedly as I balled up my rag and twisted it about the bottom of another glass. The word was barely above a whisper. The girl jolted as though I'd just thrown a bottle at her bent head.  
  
“What did you say?” She snapped.  
  
“Oh, uh... I didn't say nothing.”  
  
“Don't test me. Where the hell did you learn that?”  
  
I considered further sidetracking the conversation, and I didn't have a clue why. Her knee-jerk reaction? My guilt surrounding the source? Perhaps it was the sense of doom-driven fury the silent stranger was now emanating—like seeing a tornado suddenly twist downward from heaven set on swallowing up anything nailed down. Whatever the case, this was a corner I had to wiggle out of carefully.  
  
“That's not exactly casual information to share with a tourist.” I decided brashness was the best tactic. She might respect it, “What's your name?”  
  
She swiveled about as though there were others in the bar aside from us three. Finally, she hissed:  
  
“Sally.” Her countenance turned a bit gentler, “Forgive me, I'm just interested in ….where you learned that, is all.”  
  
“This is a museum. Lotta books lyin' about.” I responded curtly.  
  
“Hm. A likely story.” Sally took another slow sip. It was bullshit, and she saw right through. Before I could attempt to traipse my way through another white lie, her eyes snapped to the mess on the back wall that Carol was slaving over.  
  
“You do that? Who did that?”  
  
“Nobody,” Carol replied sharply, “You sure ask a lot of questions, miss.”  
  
“Just my nature.” She smiled. It was a shot at a warm one, but something about her was cold and predatory. Wolf in sheep wool. You could see it in the plain, camouflage-y way she dressed, the threatening amount of grenades nestled in the belt across her chest—some found, some homemade. The hatchet at her hip. The mirrored aviators hanging crooked over the center of her top.  
  
She was hiding a message that spelled out bad news and trouble.  
  
Another creeping sip. Another seeping grin. Her gaze was not for me. It was focused on the wall behind the bar.  
  
Sally's voice was as pleasant as wind on a hot night, “How many kidneys did you need?”  
  
An anchored sensation wrapped itself around my stomach—I'd done what Carol was warning me with her posture this whole time—a very endangering, foolish thing.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
“...ratsafrassim gate... fuckin'..”  
  
Charon was grumbling and cursing to nothing and no one in particular—something I was fast learning would be ritual for him. Not that I minded. It was better than the quiet.  
  
I smiled contentedly, staring up for a moment at the dark, clouded sky. Charon continued to swear shamelessly at the rusted-shut gate. I had a good feeling about this, about Three Dog. He was an omniscient force--the all-seeing, all-at-once eye. Any wastelander breathing heeded him and one of the last power-armored forces alive bled on his behalf. In a world of scoundrels, Three Dog kept what he called, “the good fight” alive.  
  
“I think Three Dog will know. I think I'll be able to find my Dad if we go talk to him.”  
  
“Won't be that easy.” Charon replied shortly, “Wish it was. But wishes in one hand, shit in the water.”  
  
“I thought it was 'shit in the oth--' … nevermind.” I watched him attempt to pick the lock for a while. I'd offered to shoot it with my rifle, but he argued about wasting ammo.  
  
“Who the hell locked this? How'd you get in before?”  
  
“It wasn't locked when I went in. It was probably that strange scientist.”  
  
“Is that what caused this town to go apeshit?”  
  
I took a precursory glance about. The first time I'd stumbled across this small settlement—Grayditch, the locals called it—it was half on fire and crawling with giant ants. Everything here was dead or rescued now. Far away.  
  
“...An egghead has no business being in a subway... ” He muttered inaudibly to himself. But I caught it.  
  
“And I've never seen a steakbrain picking a lock... but, here we are.”  
  
He looked back at me for a moment, eyed me as though he'd taken offense. But he scoffed, sneaking a smile, and resumed.  
  
I watched him work. Something about the way he held himself had me transfixed from the start—like he was keeping pieces of his soul at bay. Or maybe it was the way the sections of exposed muscle in his one-sleeveless arm moved, tireless and unphased. A man who had nothing to hide, but so full of secrets.  
  
“Aha, ya bastard! Got it. ..Wilde? What're you staring at.”  
  
“Your anatomy.”  
  
“My _what_.”  
  
“I don't mean that in like... a bad way... Say, you wouldn't be willing to part with a blood sample, would you? Just a small..”  
  
Charon snapped, “I am available for combat services _only._ ”  
  
“Forget I asked.” I scolded myself silently. Just when it seemed he'd start being a little more friendly I'd managed to make him prickly, speaking as though he was pre-programmed all over again.  
  
A short, impatient tiff escaped from his mouth. I hopped off my perch on the downward staircase.  
  
“Lemme go first. I can see in the dark.” Charon held his arm out as though it could stop me.  
  
“I raise your ghoul eyesight one pip-boy light.” Click. The nameless abyss transformed into a moody, green-swathed tunnel, “Besides, I've been here before.”  
  
I took long steps over the carcasses of huge, dead ants scattered among shattered concrete and piles of ash. Scorched circles dotted the barely traversed walls, the stinging scent of heat still lingered in the air.  
  
“...The hell happened here.” Charon whispered to no one.  
  
“Science. Fire ants, to be specific.” I shook my head, “The gentleman responsible had the best intentions, but you know how that goes. As I understand it, he was to trying to make them... smaller.”  
  
“And you killed him?”  
  
“No. I just helped him... fix this. I assume he left.”  
  
“You fixed this?” Charon asked. There was quiet amazement tempered in his voice, “How'd you do that?”  
  
“It involved every frag grenade I could find. Shh sh. You hear something?”  
  
“Just some radroaches. Leave 'em be.”  
  
I shuddered, “I hate those things. Give me the creeps. Are you sure this is safer than just--”  
  
“It's safer. And faster. No need to cross the Potomac, less mutants to deal with. All we gotta do is take the white line all the way to the museum station. Might be a little troublesome since you're here, but nothing to sweat over.”  
  
“Troublesome?”  
  
“The White line's got ghouls. Ferals.”  
  
I bit my lip as we moved past an old payphone swaying limpidly in the stillness. I didn't like killing ferals, let alone fighting them. They were frightening, pitiful things.  
  
“Do you ever feel bad?” I asked Charon. He was stomping out a radroach who'd decided to get too close.  
  
“Hm?”  
  
“Killing them. The ferals, I mean.”  
  
My partner grimaced as he lifted his boot and scraped the slimey guts of the bug along the ground, “Nobody kills without feeling nothing.”  
  
“Double negative.”  
  
He gave me steely stare. Then continued, “If it's a comfort... I know for a fact that taking out ferals is just pulling them out of misery. Quick end to a long pain.”  
  
“But Doctor Barrows--”  
  
“Barrows is a decent sort, but he's misguided.” Charon winced and sighed, as though he regretted bringing anything up at all, “He's convinced... that... with enough experimenting, he can find a cure.”  
  
“What if it's true?”  
  
“Even if it is, the day he finds the cure is the day I...” His voice crackled off into silence, a tiny spark, a fading flare. I watched his eyes sullenly focus on my backpack, traveling upwards to the numbers on my jumpsuit collar. I stared for a moment at the way his hair stuck out oddly at his temples and above his forehead, the scars and burn marks on his face and neck. All of it seemed to highlight everything that made him beautiful in the old world. I found myself wondering what he was, before the bombs. A bored pencil pusher locked away in a cubicle? Perhaps something completely ridiculous—a talking head or a boxer who threw his fights.  
  
I wondered if he knew, like I knew the contract was entering his heavy mind.  
  
“We could burn it.” I rushed the words out, hoping they wouldn't hurt him.  
  
 _selfish and insubordinate_  
  
“...I could sell it back to you! Ten caps!”  
  
He hissed as though I'd just suggested something taboo, “It doesn't work like that! You feel guilty. I get that. But I need that thing. It's in my head. It _is_ my head. I ain't testing what happens when it just up and poofs.” His sleeveless hand motioned upwards as though he was holding a dissipating flame.  
  
“I'm only trying to help you.” I said.  
  
He stepped forward, getting in my face and leering down like I'd challenged him to a brawl. I think he was trying to frighten me. But I wasn't about to give a man that satisfaction, even if that man did look a little something like a monster.  
  
“You wanna help me? Let me point my gun and leave it be. Quit trying to slap a bandage over things.”  
  
 _just like your father_  
  
“Too much talk.” He said finally, “Keep moving. We should be close.”  
  
The rest of the walk was quiet and tense. I wanted to be angry with him for giving up on himself long ago, and he wanted to be angry about.... well, everything probably. Obstinate and stubborn. A man after my own heart—which meant this partnership was going to be even tougher than I previously thought.  
  
I decided to be the bigger person. Or maybe I was still just being plain selfish—looking for the quickest line to forgiveness. Either way, I took a deep breath, “I'm sorry, Charon. I was just hoping... I never wanted to force--”  
  
“I told you to talk to Ahzrukhal.”  
  
I took that as his way of saying he'd made some sort of choice in the matter, and we pressed on.  
  
We spotted the motorcycle near the exit to Falls Church. I'd seen them before—in pictures, in pieces on the road. But this one was peculiar in that it seemed to be in working condition. Moreso, recently used.  
  
Our guns raised at the sight of it initially (as an unidentified shape in the dim light was apt to do), but I just couldn't contain myself when I realized what the clunky piece of machinery was.  
  
“This is amazing!” My voice rose and bounced off the dead, silent tunnel in a bright, airy echo, “Have you ever seen anything like this?”  
  
Charon rattled off another “be cautious” before catching up to me. Despite his grumpy disposition, he appeared just as surprised, rubbing his eyesockets and gaping slightly.  
  
“It's true. He wasn't lying.”  
  
I raised my eyebrows, gently picking up a strange fashion of helmet I'd never seen prior. It looked as clear and smooth as glass, but knocking on the surface revealed it was not so. A slender, almost comically tiny antennae sat top and center—like a little beacon upon a globe. I lifted the strange helmet slow and steady over my own head. A makeshift coronation in a lonely, impending doom. In the faded glow I could spot a slow, wide grin overtaking my ghoul companion's face. As soon as I returned his gesture, it vanished.  
  
“What? Do you wanna try it on?” I asked.  
  
Grimly, “No.”  
  
I took the thing off with significantly less grace, “...Crap... Jesus, how does anyone expect to breathe in this thing?”  
  
Charon knelt on the other side, inspecting the vehicle's weathered and dirt-ridden frame. He stood, lifting one of the makeshift tire-bags' lids and cricking his neck at its contents.  
  
“Lookit. It's even got a sidecart. There's a garden gnome inside.” I laughed.  
  
“Sniper ammo. No use to us. A box of... tissues? Yeah. Gotta be his.”  
  
“Whose?”  
  
“Remington. That crooner back in Megaton. This is... this is unique. He's got some kind of luck on his side.”  
  
“What a strange one. Can you imagine if we all named ourselves after our guns?”  
  
“Terrible shotgun.” Charon allowed himself another grin.  
  
“A3-21 Plasma.” I joked, displaying my trusty rifle proudly.  
  
“Where'd you get that thing, anyhow?”  
  
“It's a … long story. One that's not for telling right now.”  
  
He cast me a confused glance, “As you wish.”  
  
 **Mei Wong**  
  
The smug little doctor looked as though he was about to be sick. I hardly knew why. Well, I _knew_. I didn't exactly understand. All I wanted was a drink, a little information. An itsy bitsy answer to a very small question.  
  
It didn't phase me. I wanted it, I'd find the answer eventually. I always found and took what was mine. And _'mine'_ was whatever the hell I wanted.  
  
I flicked a lighter lid in my hand on and off, staring at my unfinished drink. The woman cleaning up the blood on the wall behind the bar gave me an even more queer look than before, but no matter. The clicking sound was mostly out of boredom, partly to the unnerve the pair in the room. Just a little.  
  
I liked ghouls. I'd ran with a handful, gotten intimate with a few, called a couple family. They were gallows-humored and mean, full of cold knowledge. Boarded up wells with upper east coast accents.  
  
I _didn't_ like the plainness of this city. It was too tied to the old ways. Doom and gloom despite the warmth of still functioning lamps. But I knew The Cowboy was not here, so this was exactly where I needed to be.  
  
“You wouldn't happen to have any beds free, would you?”  
  
“Well uh... with Quinn back in town Carol's place is full up. If you don't mind the macabre, though, there's Ahzrukhal's bed just in that back room there.”  
  
“Course not,” My temperamental gaze surveyed the blooded mess once more, “Did Ahzrukhal do that?”  
  
“No, ma'am. I'm afraid Ahzrukhal _was_ that.”  
  
Interesting. I didn't ask anything more. I needed sleep, and they were afraid of me. I was liable to get kicked out if I tested this short fellow's patience any longer.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
Falls Church was mangled up in a distant firefight, with The Brotherhood fending off Mutants trying to regain the foothold they'd lost in The Mall. We stayed low, weaving our way through the remnants of a school. I wondered about many other structures. The strangely idol-like carvings of eyeless male faces staring forever out of walls, old office buildings—just windows stacked upon steel upon windows, strength and fragility clashing all the way up to the heavens. A small fenced in plot of blackened earth with a spinning circular platform and some strange manner of hollowed out rocket threw me off at one point. A playground? It had to be.  
  
“Look sharp.” Charon alerted, “We've got Muties.”  
  
A pair of Mutants lumbered on the torn bits of the blown out classroom floor above us. Even in the dead of the night, their gargantuan forms were easy to pick out. No one seemed to know what these creatures origins were, just that they were out for blood. They were hulking, hairless and without gender--green masses that shot and swung at anything that got too close. What they had in muscle mass they lacked in strategy, but their sheer numbers kept the bloodbath going.  
  
 _What was the saying?_ The phrase slipped through my mind as I crouched behind an old schooldesk for cover: _War never changes._  
  
“BREAK THEM.” Our newfound enemies shouted. They jumped down from their wrecked perches, screaming with a heavy, roided kind of rage that was unique to their own. I could hear Charon moving back from me, drawing the Mutant with a makeshit sledgehammer out. He sounded intent on taunting it with coarse language and rusty laughter. The other monstrosity concentrated his fire on me. I held fast to that little desk like it was my shield, wincing against a sudden barrage of minigun fire.  
  
Splinters of wood whistled over my head, the smell of lead singed my nostrils. I grit my teeth, biding my time. The rain of bullets paused, only for a second. But that was all I needed. I rose and took my shot. The glowing bolt whizzed true, plasma round ate through skin. The creature yowled in alarm. Two more shots and it was over--his head a mess of goo.  
  
Charon whistled lowly, almost laughing, “You melted that sucker.”  
  
“If I didn't know any better, I'd say you were having fun.”  
  
“Hard work is happy work.” He shrugged. That was a phrase ripped right from a Vault-Tec poster. I made no mention of it, however. I had the feeling it would startle him, perhaps cause him harm.  
  
“Just a couple stretches of tunnel. This way.” He pointed with his whole hand.  
  
Under, over, through. Even with all the mapping on my Pipboy I knew I'd find myself getting lost easily. Charon was proving invaluable as a guide--the unyeilding purpose to my easily misdirected drive. For the first time since I'd crawled and screamed my way out of 101, I thought now I might see the finish line clearly.  
  
We came up for air at Arlington--a small valley and a graveyard in the literal sense. I'd never seen one proper. Vault 101 cremated their dead simply for the sake of saving space. In the deep navy light, the small white crosses and leaning tombstones seemed to stand out against the hillsides even more. The winding road was largely intact and morosely silent. Not even the wind stirred.  
  
A 'Life Preservation Station' stood just outside the railyard. I'd found the Wilkes boy crouching in another of its kind in Grayditch. The upright structures were thin-walled and silver, cylindrical in shape. The friendly coin slot near the sliding door was the cherry atop the irony.  
  
“People back then thought _these_ would keep them safe? They're essentially tin cans.”  
  
“People were afraid. Fear does anything for a comfort.”  
  
“You know, for someone who seems so averse to the intellectual, you're a pretty smart guy.”  
  
Charon grumbled unintelligibly.  
  
We barely exchanged another word in the damp, decrepit tunnels known as The White Line. I thought Marigold's labyrinth was bad enough. This place was something else entirely. A steady, constant sound of water droplets plinking and leaking throughout the chasm sent chilly echoes across my skin. Swears and obscene drawings covered the walls. Trash, money and ancient propaganda posters were once again fossilized into the surface of the floor. Something about the structure seemed to sag and lean uncomfortably despite its sturdiness. Maybe it was the air here—suffocating even with the wind, wet and cold, welcoming to no life.  
  
“Lead on, I've never been here.” I never wanted to be. I avoided the subway whenever possible. The crushing, inhospitable spaces reminded me too much of what was, of 'home'.  
  
“Certainly.”  
  
He puffed up like he was full of purpose and pride all of a sudden. Here was the world's most earnest workaholic. A small, amused grin occupied my face in spite of the grit in my eyes, the chill of the tunnels, and the horrors that lay ahead.  
  
 **Mei Wong**  
  
I didn't open the safe because I needed to, only because I knew I could. Whoever this Ahzrukhal was, he'd made quite an effort hiding it behind several wooden crates of empty Nuka Cola bottles. But empty bottles were exactly what I'd been looking for in that moment. Joke was on the dead man, as usual.  
  
The lock was surprisingly easy for a safe in such good condition. Guess he wasn't counting on protecting his stash from a gal armed with a bobby pin. Too bad. Was hoping for something good and rare—holotapes--music or old films. Weird sex shit. Literature, pressed flowers, good photographs. But this guy must've been as clinically uptight and boring as his room. I only found a shitload caps and near enough drugs to send the cardsharks of Gomorrah into a feeding frenzy. A couple of pistols. I grabbed every tin of Mentats I could envision myself carrying without trouble, swept the caps onto the marbled floor to count them out. Nothing to write Grandma about.  
  
The few sad, slips of paper hiding in the very back caught my eye shortly after getting through counting up the caps. If I were anywhere else I'd dismiss them as trash scraps, but this room was so neat, that conclusion was damned.  
  
Typewritten. List. Most of it crossed out. Did this fella really need to remember what groceries he had to buy in 2051? A cackling laugh turned somber when the realization struck. These were names. Crossed out names, a handful of them still legible beneath thin, red ink. Atkins, Todd. Barrowman, Phillip. Hart, Richard. Krinkle, Henry.  
  
What a boring sausage fest. I was curious about what warranted its hiding spot. A list of lost loves? Vengeance tally? Seemed far too lengthy, even for that. Gazing down further sent strange spears of fear down my spine, as though every name had now entered the small room to stare lifelessly at my neck. I turned round reflexively. No one there. Of course, of course. In these quiet moments of not plotting and taking and slicing, the fear was always getting the best of me.  
  
My eyes widened and subsquently landed on a name—the only name--that was not marred by anemic ink strings.  
  
“Charles McCarron. What made you so damn exceptional, huh?” The subsequent name on the list was crossed out so violently there was no hope of deciphering it. The pen had gone so far as to leave a gash in the paper. Scar tissue. Another exception. Just... different.  
  
That sick, icy stare was practically breathing against me now. Shallow, yet burning like fading chips in a wood fire.  
  
 _“I read somewhere... I think it was Life or Time or some shit... that sometimes, in the womb, one twin'll just... soak up the other. Like a goddamned parasite.”_  
  
I could sense the barrel of the pistol at my back just as acutely as I could feel my mentat rush slipping away like the sands of an hourglass. I brought my hands up, not as a signal of surrender, but to press down upon my temples. I dare not turn around. You didn't give a vision oxygen, otherwise you might spiral out, lose your shit. Shell shock was all but uncommon in a climate like this, but my little memory boxes were often not mine at all.  
  
Grandma always said it was venom in me. 'A snake will shed its own skin away, from time to time.' A lot of what my grandmother told me as a child was utter loon talk, but in moments like these, on nights where I could hear the bombs falling and smell the fear from someone hiding out in a hollowed out shelter, I found the theory as sound as the nasty scar trailing down my right calf—courtesy of a rattlesnake on the outskirts of New Reno when I was just a young girl.  
  
That gun was still behind me. That nameless ghost. I wanted to tell it to get lost, that I didn't have time for its Shakespearian brahmin shit.  
  
BANG. My limbs locked up momentarily. All that ugly energy seemed to dissipate with it, bad dust swept beneath a smelly rug.  
  
 _bang bang_. Softer. It wasn't until I heard the voice on the other side of the door that the true source of that sound hit me. Just knocking.  
  
Underworld's doctor, “You alright, ma'am? Lotta noise… Er, Carol's got extra pillows, if you need 'em. But you gotta get them yourself.”  
  
“I'm fine!” I called back, “Just ...looking through my supplies.” _Nosy prick._ His footfalls away from the door sounded slow and timid. I didn't understand why he feared me. I'd given him no reason to. Not a real one, not yet. I'd have to skip town in the morning. Denizens of 'civilized' settlements were too uneasy—looking at everything while sharpening knives. At least with raiders, you knew where you stood right away.  
  
I gently plucked that strange list up from the middle of the floor. Reached for my lighter and lit it with a twitching yet decisive hand. There was no particular motive—only that it seemed the thing to do. I watched paper get eaten away into ash; the singular, hungry flame dancing quietly in the surface of my eyes. One last glance at anything legible. I'd remember all the names.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
Further into the darkness, the smell seemed even worse than outside. I stole sparing breaths against a cool, musty draft and followed the sounds of Charon's boots. I'd turned off my pip boy light, at his suggestion. “The Crazies'll flock to that green light”. I was skeptical. It seemed superstitious.  
  
The causalities of the world outside had melded with the corpses of feral ghouls and foul, seeping water—twisted piles, pale and cold. Lost souls neglected by all except mirelurks; the creatures seemed to be using the unfortunate dead as nests. Maybe it was for the best I could barely eye what I was walking upon-- _who_ I might be walking upon. One could still see the gaping outlines of sunken eyes and radroach ridden mouths.  
  
The network of the tunnel was a long, snaking thing. The deeper we went, the morose and dim it seemed to grow. Small mirelurk nests gave way to networks, the lined up corpses into visceral, unidentifiable piles.  
  
Water and wreckage had overtaken much of our course. Two crashed subway cars, lit by a small barrel fire. Charon mumbled something about there being no sign of raiders, glaring suspiciously at the dying blaze and a number of disarmed traps.  
  
My gaze was determined on taking in as much as possible through the shadows and filth. Empty husks of new-world gear, brittle scrap, a few briefcases all splayed open. An unsettling baby doll with blinking eyes lopsided and tufts of its blonde hair missing. Seated bones. A bobblehead? I couldn't help but pause. No, not Vault-Tec. A smiling girl with a green skirt and a necklace of flowers. Long black hair, brown skin. Her eyes were warm and her hands were raised and gentle, as though dancing. I pocketed the tiny silver lining, thankful Charon was a little too far ahead now to object.  
  
“Best not linger.” He called over his shoulder, “Kinda rocky here. Watch out.”  
  
I pressed on (quite literally) through the miniscule space between cement and metal. My footing was usually more sure than most, even in unexplored parts of the capital, but the jagged concrete gave me no mercy. I stumbled a few times, got stuck more. Charon was nearly out, making it look easy and quick. Like Jonas' grandmother, Old Lady Palmer, trying to teach me how to thread a needle.  
  
 _(seems like just yesterday your Daddy arrived—OH! listen to me talk...)_  
  
She knew. Everyone knew I was born Outside and no one bothered to tell. Not even my father. The resentment rose like the soreness in my muscles and the lingering dryness in my throat. I'd ignored until it all until now. I'd need rest and a stimpak soon.  
  
Hungry, high pitched squeaks resounded not far away. Shotgun fire. Silence.  
  
“Just a rat.” Charon sighed down at the huge, freshly killed creature laying against the tracks. I stretched my limbs, shook the pains away.  
  
There was a long, distant sneering sound, a pause, an eruption. A cymbal crash chorus of hissing, screaming from the darkness ahead. The sounds were uncomfortably human and not-so all at the same time. I flipped my pip boy's light back on. They'd see me sooner than never regardless. Now was the time to bury all dread and fascination. Death was ushering in droves at the end of the tracks.  
  
“They hear us.” Charon blinked down at the felled rat as though this had been his fault. I wanted to tell him it wasn't so—but there wasn't even time for a breath.  
  
Three ferals launched forth from the abyss of another wide, empty tunnel, snarling and slicing the air with outstretched, enraged hands. Naked, husk-like, all bent and contorted like dead branches. The first of the group caught me by surprise, grabbing for my neck. In an instant I felt the violent kick of adrenaline, pushing the creature back with my rifle, kicked it down, shot it once in the chest. Quieted. I dispatched the other two in the same manner, feeling enveloped by an energy that was both sharpened and numb. Separate from the self I usually was.  
  
Charon kept pace beside me, stoic against the carnage and sweltering noise. Maybe it was the echoes of the subway itself, but where one terrible hitching cry fell, more climbed upwards from the soft, rotten ground. Gunshots, silhouettes, It all became a blur. Bloodened skin, ripped nails, lidless eyes and gaping teeth. Each moment of headway was multiplied by more chaos. A law of the universe: One second you were there and you were winning, as a hunk of scrap dangled over your head, primed like the blade of a guillotine.  
  
Charon and I wound up practically back against back, a cacophony of plasma shots slicing through flesh while shotgun shells boomed and carnage sprayed across walls on the opposite side.  
  
“There's too many!” I shouted as soon as I could find the air to.  
  
“Follow me! Keep going!” Charon cleared a path, fighting like a meathammer the entire way to a crumbling platform on the right side of the tracks. I cleared a few on our tail that got too close—not with the same combination of ease and gruel, but definitely with the same sense of grit. Charon climbed up the low landing as though he'd done so countless times, hand outstretched to me. I took it, welcoming the pull upwards; steadying as soon as I stepped over the thick, yellow warning line faded into the concrete.  
  
A gap in the wall revealed a slender, tall metal door that seemed fortified by moving parts. “FERALS” was painted in crooked red across it, below a tiny pre-war sign that read: STAFF ONLY in smaller lettering. Charon slammed a switch nearby while I covered him, sending the few ferals trying to climb up the platform our way down into the tracks, where the rest of them were still clawing, distracted, throwing the dead rat and ripping it to pieces. A Glowing One, lithe and pulsing with a menacingly effervescent green light, was standing on the platform opposite ours. His skin was translucent, his emaciated frame revealing pale outlines of bone. He did not move, in spite of his cigarette-burn eyes staring across at us.  
  
“Charon. Charon, look.” But he did not. He couldn't hear me—instead, he ushered me into blinding light, through a small passage as soon as the door hissed open. Its parts moved, spidery and clinking. I watched, dazed as several stragglers gurgled onto the platform and gave chase, only a few feet away. The door locked into place like a clenching fist. There were several thuds as the group tried and failed to break through from the other side.  
  
I remained on guard, listening for the next inevitable wave.  
  
“There's nothin' here but time.” Charon remarked, “The sign's to keep raiders out. You alright?”  
  
“Alright as I can be in a place like this.” Harsh, white emergency lights were working, generators buzzing low. “Where are we?”  
  
“Old maintenance tunnel I'm guessin',” He shrugged, “Found it the last time I came through here. Was hoping to get you here quiet, but the best laid plans of mice...”  
  
We both sighed, slinking down to sitting positions in the empty passage. Killing raiders and mutants felt somewhat satisfying after seeing what they'd done to people, something triumphant. This firefight was thankless and tragic.  
  
Charon shook my pack from his shoulders, having insisted on carrying it since leaving Grayditch.  
  
“Grab a stim, clear your head. Gonna need it for fetching that whats-it dish.”  
  
“Satellite relay.” I corrected him as I searched through a pouch on my belt, finding the sight of the small red vial atop a needle a welcome relief.  
  
“Why not just talk to Three Dog directly?” Charon had taken the box of Fancy Lads from my pack, dumping them in his lap.  
  
“Because it'll help him. It will aid The Good Fight.”  
  
“What's that even _mean_. He's been preaching it for years and all I've seen is more body piles, more Brotherhood of Steel bullshit.”  
  
“That's not a good enough reason for me to stop trying.” I snapped, “Besides, something tells me you've been looking in the wrong places... Jesus, are you gonna eat that whole damn box?”  
  
“Sorry.” He mumbled, “Got a sweet tooth from hell.” He threw one in my direction. I caught it, turned on the radio, low volume. Tried to forget most of what I'd just seen, tried to resist mentioning how pointless popping a rad-x was to Charon as he did so, tried to push away the threat of time chipping away. The miles between my father and I were likely growing immeasurable. On the radio, Three-Dog was finishing up talking about the boy I'd helped escape from Grayditch, moved on to reminiscing about the time he'd seen a tree--”a _real_ tree”. Then, a Billie Holiday song, ethereal and moving like a sunset.  
  
“Three Dog's calling you a peacekeeper now. What's next?” Charon's tone was mocking as he cracked open a water bottle, “Avenger? God?”  
  
“I'm aiming for 'Sellout'.” I smarted back. He snorted.  
  
“There was a glowing one back there,” I mentioned finally, “it didn't even make a run for us.”  
  
Charon passed the bottle to my outstretched hand, “Hmph.”  
  
“Don't you wonder why?” I took a large sip, passed it back.  
  
“No. The answer to that question is usually a big fucking disappointment.” He paused, “Maybe he was waiting for his train.”  
  
“Did you... I'm sorry... did you just make a _joke_?”  
  
He smiled in that slow, reserved way again. I shook my head in disbelief, laughing.  
  
 **Mei Wong**  
  
One crashing, blackout kind of sleep and three mentats later and I was ready, raring, my mind crackling and fresh lit. I returned the room back to its original state with a high, quiet energy—everything undesired back into the safe, crates stacked upright, (a few bottles missing, not enough to be noticed), ashes swept under the tiny, soiled mattress.  
  
The Ninth Circle was cleaned up too, abandoned with the exception of one person: Patches. Passed out, torso splayed on the counter, limp fingers around the neck of a tall, near empty bottle of scotch. I took it from him, setting it back down on the bar after taking a swig. Bitter, irradiated. Patchwork's eyes fluttered for a second, closing as soon as I shushed him back to sleep. My interest in Ahzrukhal's end had waned, otherwise I might've asked him. The gray-haired lush possessed a willingness to kiss and tell, even if it was burp-y and muddled.  
  
What I _was_ interested in, however, was the duffel behind the counter.  
  
Guns and caps. A whole heapload. I swept up the bag, saluting at the sleeping shape on my way out.  
  
Underworld was exceptionally quiet, the Doctor was presumably back in his little corner, as was the sharp little lady working by his side. This was no bother, I was used to leaving while people slept, anyhow.  
  
There were tense voices outside. I could hear them all the way from the huge, round desk at the entrance. Opening the grime-caked glass doors revealed it was still night, the sky displaying the same color as when I'd arrived.  
  
“Fly away. You're not welcome.”  
  
Five males, laughing, arms crossed over their chests. I recognized the white, claw emblems on their combat armor in an instant: Talon Company. Nasty group of mercs. No better than the scum beneath my fingernails.  
  
The guard out front pointed her rifle defensively. Her posture was defiant, but her voice had a traceable tremble.  
  
“It's five against one, shuffler.” A talon challenged.  
  
She spit, “I'm the fastest shot this city's got. Try me.”  
  
 _What a miracle,_ I thought, _they can count._  
  
I couldn't resist laughing at my own stupid joke. The taunting group noticed my presence then, nodding at me, “Who're you?”  
  
“I'm just a happy tourist, like yourselves.” I blinked cooly, thankful I'd thought to put my sunglasses on. The eyes, I couldn't stand their eyes. In the sweltering dark, they looked like little gleaming stones.  
  
“What's eating you?” I asked.  
  
The leader of the group, an average sized, ugly sonofagun with a face like a pimple: “We're looking for that Vault Kid. We know she's stopped here. You know 'em?”  
  
“Blondie.” Anyone and everyone with a radio and working ears knew. Her and her father. Though D.C.'s favorite voice was much quieter about him. I guessed Three Dog must've been paid off. I'd actually _seen_ the frightened girl, though, before the disc jockey's airwaves picked her up. At an old junkyard, fighting off raiders with nothing but a bat and choked, angry sobs. Looked like the first time she'd really committed violence on anything in her life. She left a little less scared, with a dog. She hadn't seen me, of course. No one did, unless I willed it. She'd come close a few times. A little too close, recently. With a new friend.  
  
“Yeah, I might know.” I answered finally.  
  
I wasn't sure what to make of her. I left surprises all over on my travels—mostly clues for misleading The Cowboy, or leading him, whatever whim I followed. Some caches were just for 'leveling the playing field'. A fun game. I'd watch many travelers raid them, but she'd found the most, and always left something behind—a pack of bobby pins, a book, a trinket. Even caches I'd rigged up with land mines were treated with reverence. A strange little custom from a girl at the center of something that seemed stranger, bigger. My first impressions found her insufferably sunny-side-up and too self-righteous. Still, she refused to keep idle. That earned at least a dollop of my... something.  
  
“There's a price on her head, big one.” The pimplehead Talon cawed, “Maybe you'd like to help? We split caps equal.”  
  
Their faces lied. I took a moment to regard the ghoul beside me, then turned back to the boys:  
  
“Sure. Let's make a deal.”  
  
Willow (was that her name? I was never very good with names) voiced an objection. I snapped loudly, deliberate, “Last I saw, she was headed south a ways, for Andale. I can show you the way.” Willow's mouth thinned, she shook her head in slow, mock horror. Playing along and playing well. Good.  
  
The band of scum grinned collectively. The leader clapped his hands and rubbed them together. They were eager and greedy and I was only one woman. But by the end, they'd know I was something that trampled and devoured.  
  
“Easy-peasy,” I winked back at the lone ghoul guarding the museum entrance. And it would be easy. A tooth for an eye. “If you'll follow me boys, I only need to find my Ghost.”  
  
The foremost priority in my mind was leading them away from The Mall. No moral reason or rhyme, simply because I could. Beyond that, my thoughts were on kidneys.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
The subways' maintenance tunnel path where we'd found sanctuary ended at a colossal mezzanine overlooking a grand, square room with four stilled escalators grouped in twos, facing each other. Giant, faded billboards dominated the walls—"Night of the Living Dead II" playing at Paradise Falls, Nuka-Cola, a museum exhibition for rocket science, GNR Radio. The mental image of hustling pre-war crowds from the past felt almost palatable. It made the structure's emptiness even more eerie.  
  
Charon appeared to be on edge (more so, anyway) the closer we moved toward the escalators. Before we exited the tunnel he'd warned me of raiders camping out near the old info kiosk. Although there was evidence of bedding, beer bottles and spent chems littering the western corner of the Metro's center, there were no signs of threatening life.  
  
Voices chimed down from the bottom of the steps. Thin and stretched. Charon moved for cover, silently motioning to me from a section of cracked ledge. I peeked down into the darkened first floor to find three figures front and center, facing off in a triangle, pistols pointed. Not a soul without a bullet aimed at their heart.  
  
“I found it.” One voice argued.  
  
“Yeah, well I lugged it around! The whole damn way.”  
  
“Fellas, if we just think about this for a se--”  
  
Shots ripped through the air before the third voice could finish, carrying bursts of angry light. They stilled just as abruptly.  
  
Charon grabbed a nearby bottle, launched it down as far as he could muster. “They're dead,” he announced finally.  
  
I switched my pip boy light back on. We made our way down the steep, ebony teeth set in solid chrome railings.  
  
The bottom was just a cavernous heap of more refuse and more rubble. Small telephone booths dotted the walls, turnstiles faced corresponding sets of double doors to the east.  
  
“Mall's just out there. But... something ain't right.”  
  
Those part of the shootout were sprawled out near the turnstiles. Three bodies arranged like the cornerstones, shot down where they stood. Fresh blood pooled behind each lonely, holed head—two males, one female. The plain manner in which they dressed suggested they were just wastelanders. Centered between them was a sad, rusted red wagon, filled with water bottles.  
  
“They could've shared... Why didn't they just...”  
  
“No sense spilling sympathy where there was only a pissing contest. Look alive. I saw four of 'em.”  
  
He was right. I could hear footsteps nearby—indecisive and frightened. Charon raised his gun, looked as though he was going to fire. I told him to hold it.  
  
“Who are you? Why are you hiding?” I called out.  
  
“Wilde, there's no time to--”  
  
A voice that was not familiar stuttered from behind an old kiosk, “M-My name is Rory. Rory Maclaren. Please! I didn't want to shoot anyone. I just need the water. I'll trade you. I'm a trader. Please, Little Lamp needs--”  
  
“Slow down, Rory.” I said gently. His silhouette was lanky and strung, like someone who'd been hung out to dry. He drew a craggy sort of breath before continuing,  
  
“I don't have many caps, but I have a couple stealth boys... a-and a pistol.”  
  
Initially, it settled in my mind to let him take the water with nothing in exchange. I'd simply soothe his unease and walk onward. But the stealth boys would prove invaluable in the museum. I knew there were mutants there, the question was how many. With how little ammo I had left after this trek, staying hidden sounded more like salvation.  
  
“Keep your gun. The stealth boys will do.”  
  
Nervous rummaging sounds. Charon still had his weapon raised, his jaw tense and his mouth twisted in mild annoyance. Rory reached out in the darkness. He passed the stealth boys to me, flinching as soon as I moved to deposit them into my pack.  
  
“Take care!” I called as I moved towards the exit.  
  
“And grow a fucking backbone.” Charon added finally. Our sentiments were genuine, even if my partner's words were harsh. Rory simply fell back into the darkness and dragged his feet.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“Could've shot him and walked out with the water _and_ the stealthboys.”  
  
“That's not my way.”  
  
There it was. That blasted, nonsensical kindness again.  
  
“But he's walking mole rat chow.” I didn't understand. She had the guts and the skill necessary to know the demanding dangers of this place. The trek here made that clear. Why help the damned? Eventually, she'd have to put a bullet in someone asking for mercy.  
  
“He gets another day. Sometimes, that's all anyone needs.”  
  
The way she said it, I almost felt it directed at me. A cold slap across the face. And for a second, I almost felt myself believe it.  
  
“Fair enough.” It was painful to admit, but that queer kindness was nudging at me, too. Ever since Megaton and that silly bible passage. A week ago, I wouldn't have given her so much as a glare. Yet here I was. Breaking bread and cracking jokes. Hell, even daring to console her when she tried testing the contract business.  
  
Normally I was not a 'believer' of any sort. As far as I was concerned, there was nothing in the clouds but a bucket and a mop. But if there was one thing I knew, it was this: Fate had a funny way of tangling up all the strings and turning all the tables when you pushed your way out of limbo.  
  
We hiked up another long escalator upon exiting the metro. Dawn was rising up through smoke and ash—record time, we'd cut the journey in half. Underworld was closer than a shadow now, right behind us. Willow nodded to us briefly as Wilde pulled an envelope from her pack.  
  
“For Carol, from Gob.” Willow tucked it away beneath her belt. She glanced at me like the big scary, elephant-in-the-room I was so used to being and switched her tired expression back to Wilde. Her face turned stern and worried.  
  
“I'm sure I don't have to tell the two of you twice: Stay out of Andale.” She warned finally.  
  
“What's in Andale?” Wilde had that dangerous curiosity on her face again.  
  
“There's some nasty smoothskins after you. Black armor. A sightseer threw them off your trail. I guess it pays to be a saint, huh?”  
  
“Who--”  
  
“Wilde.” I interrupted, “I suggest we focus on the task at hand.”  
  
Wilde nodded and thanked her.  
  
The farther away we stepped from Underworld, the better I felt. Now it was just a straight shot across The Mall. The Capitol Building lay like a hazy mirage to our left, with the Washington monument towering close at our right. The boss marched ahead through trees that looked more like blown out candles. A too-happy tune played from the Pip Boy on her wrist. I watched her strap one of the stealth boys on the same arm. She handed me the extra just as we reached the grand, dirty entrance of our destination.  
  
“I hope you're decent at moving quiet.” She said, turning off her radio. Thank god. How anyone stood listening to the same handful of songs for that long I'd never know.  
  
I clipped the hideous little gizmo to my belt. It was a slim rectangle with a tiny dish-like apparatus that folded out and up, along with a bunch of small buttons. You couldn't trust anything with that many damn buttons... but if it meant less conversation, then I was for it.  
  
“I hope you've got a better plan than just hide-and-seek.” I murmured.  
  
“Have a little faith.” Wilde grinned that warm golden smile and slipped inside the Tech Museum. That smile shook me up a little—made me feel like she could see right into all my thoughts. Still, I followed, readying myself for the smell of fresh death and the shadows of Mutants waiting to greet us within.


	5. Vaults and Volatility

**Mei Wong**  
  
Pimplehead was off finding kindling to keep dawn's bite away, whispering to three of his crew. The slimey fuck.  
  
The key to any good bit of fun was disruption. There were several simple ways to do that, of course. Dwindling down supplies. Bribery, poison. Seeding resentment.  
  
Once in a little while, disruption found its way to you.  
  
“They like your funny brahmin. They want it.”  
  
The last of Talon company had spoken. He was struggling with starting a fire. The gangling little freak was the short straw of the group—constantly being hazed and stuck with doing the shit work, most likely. I didn't know his real name and I didn't care. To me, he was a Grasshopper—all limbs and no spine.  
  
“That's no a brahmin.” I said, pulling out my lighter and offering the flame to him, “That's a mare.”  
  
Pimplehead vying for my horse was no surprise. Men with the illusion of power always wanted what was good and rare and could never be theirs.  
  
Ghost'd reunited with me once we hit the outskirts of the city. She avoided D.C. Ruins almost entirely—she was fine with noise and even drawn to fire, but people made her skittish. Fortunately, most kept their distance from her terrible form. Mutants and ferals didn't touch ghouls without provocation, and wastelanders were either too nonobservant or frightened to approach.  
  
And she was a frightful thing, my Ghost. Her ash colored coat, flecked with bone white spots, only made the blackened scars spread throughout more jarring. Her muzzle was reduced to skeletal frame and her ivory mane nothing but tendon-like strands. But it was her neighs that caused even the most stony challengers to wince. Shrill and awful. Despite all that she was gentle and friendly to me. By and by, her appearance was all the better for us both. A potent repellent for the weak and ill driven.  
  
“Where'd you find her?” Grasshopper asked, avoiding my gaze as he snapped a nearby twig and threw it into the budding flames. His left pinky finger was gone. A popular wasteland punishment for recaptured slaves.  
  
“Two Sun. Arizona.” With the fire now burning in the chill, Ghost was slinking nearer.  
  
“She's one of a kind. Like you.”  
  
I smiled. Grasshopper was still looking anywhere but my eyes.  
  
“I know who you are, Sally Hatchet. I've heard the stories.”  
  
I snapped, “I'd choose your next words very carefully, Grasshopper.” I already knew the boy meant me no harm. But there was a part to play. You couldn't get anywhere without people thinking you were either more dangerous or more harmless than what you really were. Show your true colors, the length and breadth of your limitations, and your guts were primed to spill out on the ground.  
  
Grasshopper looked behind us for just a second, then whispered, “I was offered freedom for ...this. But--”  
  
He wanted what we all wanted, needed, every so often—a way out.  
  
And I wanted disruption.  
  
I smiled coyly, “I think we could help each other out.”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
Stealth boys were a disorienting mess. A body could get through just fine (more or less) with the right route and enough ammo. But this—this near invisibility was damn excessive. It was strange to feel so solid, but see nothing more than a shimmering outline of yourself. Vulnerable. Like being naked in a dream or getting startled by your own shadow, only a hell of a lot worse.  
  
The interior of the museum was no comfort, either. Between the piecemeal displays of old world planes and broken columns, the leftovers of a squad of Brotherhood goons were splayed and scattered. If the over-armored geeks couldn't even make it past the entrance...  
  
“I don't like the looks of this.” I muttered.  
  
“Really? I was thinking this would be a nice place for a sit down.” Wilde smarted back.  
  
“No time.”  
  
“Oh, I'm only joking. Would it kill you to laugh?”  
  
 _Yes._  
  
She tapped sharply away at a monitor housed in the nearest column. A trio of mutants could be heard from a robotics exhibit nearby. Arguing. Their words were labored and blunt. Vein-popping effort with no hope of creating a whole sentence.  
  
I suggested (as quietly as I was able) that we move. Wilde raised a shimmering palm and I could hear the words she wanted to say even in shrouded silence: _kindly, hush._  
  
“WE NEED... TO MAKE... MORE.” Mutants were getting closer. Footfalls lumbering with tired ire, voices still back and forth with disagreement. I'd never heard one of the freaks hold a conversation before. And honestly, I didn't care.  
  
A mutant cursed as something crashed to the floor. They were practically down our necks now.  
  
“Wilde...” I whispered in warning. Still tapping away. What was the terminal holding that was so important, anyhow? The only ones I'd ever peeked at held nothing more than computerized journals... maintenance records, customer complaints, innocuous memos and office gossip. More evidence that pre-war people were insane. Same as always.  
  
“Aaand... Got it!” Wilde hissed excitedly.  
  
Then came another kind of tapping. Ruthless and sudden. I ducked instinctively, thinking it was the freaks catching our scent. Wilde's shape merely stooped slightly.  
  
“Turrets.” I heard her smile.  
  
Somehow, she'd rerouted the whole security system. I scratched at my head in dumbfounded awe.  
  
“This way,” She whispered the moment the firing stopped, “We've got to move before the others investigate.”  
  
We stepped carefully over the scraps of ancient aviators and machines, only pausing to search through ammo boxes propped up against sandbags and overturned tables. Silent and quick, like lizards darting in and out of rocks. Nearly joined at the hip out of fear of getting left behind. Anything for a comfort.  
  
Wilde hissed an exhale as soon as the next exhibit in our path came into view. A scaled down vault entrance with its large gear-shaped door marked with an arbitrary two-digit number. Tattered velvet ropes lay overturned on all sides, with a small intact sign to our right that read: _TOUR STARTS HERE._  
  
Wilde's voice rang cautiously among the sudden shift from marble to metal walls, “There could be another way around. There has to be...”  
  
“The only way out is through.” I replied, just as softly. I wasn't sure if it was the stealth-boy affecting my tone or if it was the strange, cold air emanating from beyond the false vault entrance. Didn't know why all Wilde's confidence was draining, either. The reasons were of little consequence. We had a satellite to find.  
  
Wilde pulled the lever housed on an important looking console with slight hesitance. A tiny rumble, and the door collapsed inward, rolling away smoothly. The level of noise was enough to put us both on the defensive. But the mutants were probably still behind, dealing with the turrets. The “tour” was a cramped, singular hallway of weathered steel that displayed tiny rooms behind huge, curved windows every few paces. A soft, friendly voice boasted the details of each showcase from programmed speakers. “Spacious kitchen's mom will love!” “Clean, recycled air!” “Bored? The entertainment room will suit your needs!” Behind that one, a lonely projector displayed a single, gray slide reading: PLEASE STAND BY in large, cold letters.  
  
I made the mistake of lingering there for a second, and that's when I saw him: a no-name figure twisted and crouching in the darkness, pressing a bloodied hand against the glass.  
  
The voice was familiar, like I'd heard it faraway and in a dream. Rasping and struggling. _A dying man._ :  
  
“...everything...I'm so... hungry... everything burns.... Listen. You get out of here, Charlie. Shut the door and don't let that bastard get any of it. Not even a damned paperclip.” As his words went on, strange rabid sounds began to come with them. At one point he paused to abruptly scream, slamming a fist into the window. He then caught his breath,“Go see the mammoth for me... go back to Boston... home...You hear me? Forget about us. You're going to get out of here. Forget ev--” The figure grasped his head with both hands, shrieking once more before disappearing from view.  
  
The figure returned frightfully, nothing but fits, slamming his entire body into the barrier between us, like his lifeforce had been leaked and replaced with nothing but violence. Chunks of skin, clumps of hair clung to the glass with each hammering throe. A name entered my mind just as violently.  
  
“Phillip.... _Philly!_ ” The sudden shift in my voice was punctuated with a fist. The window became more like a mirror, the air increasingly like a trap.  
  
A gentle hand on my bad shoulder. I moved away, unaccustomed with the whisper of contact. It was something I barely remembered and didn't need. Just like this goddamned exhibit, just like the image of Philly behind the glass.  
  
“What is it? What did you see?” Wilde asked softly.  
  
“Nothing.” Truthfully, there had been nothing there all along. The cell I'd been staring into was as empty and dead now as the rest. Even the slide "PLEASE STAND BY" had disappeared quietly.  
  
But nothing was quiet on our side, no. You could hear a mutant catching onto our trail, maybe more.  
  
“I know this is difficult...” Wilde urged gently, “But we have to keep moving.”  
  
Such was the way. We made it through the rest of the tour unharmed and without words. I kept my eyes on the path ahead, the tired pear-shaped silhouette in front of me. Wilde's gaze seemed surprisingly narrow, too. I was only partly aware of sharpened pain in my shoulder and the irregularity of my breathing. I'd never experienced such an attack on my senses before. But I would do what I'd always done to the strange and unknown: keep it denied and walled away.  
  
The gear shaped opening at the end of our passage was a welcome sight. The sooner we made ourselves scarce of this place, the better.  
  
There was a collection of pamphlets on the ground as soon as we exited—all advertising vault-tec's ill fated “program”. A dusty bobblehead. Wilde paused to pick that up and stepped onward.  
  
A lonesome, ugly creature well known to guard Mutant territory dragged itself on piecemeal limbs into view. Blubbering and slimy, twisted tongues flailing from its thin mouth. It was something humanoid--but too like a ruddy, crumpled caricature to call it even that. Wilde took a shot at it with her pistol, now equipped with a silencer.  
  
“I hate centaurs. Creepy.” She sighed as its body went limp.  
  
“Is that what you smooths call 'em?”  
  
“What do ghouls call them?” Wilde asked bemusedly.  
  
I spat at one of its wriggling, bloated feet as we passed, “Politicians.”  
  
Something labeled PLANETARIUM was next. I couldn't recall what that meant, but I was sure I wasn't going to like it.  
  
If my jaw wasn't still attached, it would've clattered to the floor. We opened the set of double doors, and found ourselves in a peaceful oasis of a relic. A circular room with sloping rows of soot dark chairs on all sides, closing in around one small island of a platform. A strange projector, round and likened to a giant compound eye, stood in the center. The room was entirely empty otherwise and eerily silent. We carefully made our way down a near-pristine staircase. Little flecks of dust hung in the air like fireflies.  
  
We made it to the center. Wilde was staring into the dimly lit dome above, “What was this place? What did they do here?”  
  
“They” were all dead. What they “did” was build monuments to the very things that destroyed them. This woman's curiosity with the past—however well meaning—was a cumbersome thing. Even Three Dog shared disdain for what was, and that guy was the sunniest personality left on earth.  
  
“Pagan rituals.” I shrugged finally. “Who cares.”  
  
As though the damned room were watching, all lights cut out at once with a hollow noise. I could still see her, of course. My own senses sharpened and adjusted quickly while she stood frozen in place, no doubt blinking away the sudden shift. Her hand primed over her pistol like it was second nature. I mimicked the move, scanning the room for anything that might have caused the short.  
  
The moment was over just as quickly. The projector ignited noiselessly. It splayed color and light all across the dome above. Tiny stars like spattered freckles across colors I couldn't fathom seeing in the real sky. Searingly bright yet oddly cold. It shunted Wilde and I closer together, unknowing, inch by inch. Our hands limp at our sides. The image swirled and rotated slowly, flickered in and out several times, but that didn't stop us from marveling breathlessly.  
  
“Have you ever seen anything like this?”  
  
I was no longer staring upwards. I found my gaze more focused on her. The stealth boy wearing off, her shape in and out of camouflage erratically. One instant a shuddering shape made up of stars, then something solid and smiling. All one in the same. I was euphoric. I was afraid.  
  
“No, I haven't.” My voice was stupid, dry, and tongue heavy. Wilde beamed at me with radium in her eyes and the universe framing her head.  
  
“Well... How about that sit down?”  
  
I did laugh at that. A booming voice lashed out between us like lightning.  
  
 _“SINCE THE DAWN OF TIME, MAN HAS ALWAYS DREAMED OF—OF—LIFE AMONG--ALWAYS DREAMED... TIME... LEGACY”_  
  
It looped, locked in its mistakes. The voice was so familiar, almost comforting. Home. House. Robert House.  
  
The Mutant screams came soon after, the double doors at the top of the aisles bursting.  
  
Wilde and I cursed at the same time.  
  
"Shit."  
  
 **Remington**  
  
“So you see, there's nothing that proves we are _not_ experiencing anything more than a simulation. You've had to have noticed the signs? An impossible shot hitting the target, the inconsistencies in the way our tech works. People walking around with nothin' to say, or just repeating themselves. The physics! The way creatures sometimes twitch after death. Hell, I knew a guy on the road to D.C. that just got himself stuck in the middle of a damn boulder. Not underneath, the _middle_. No reason or rhyme. It's bugged, man. We're all bugged.”  
  
I puffed. The dog sitting beside me panted patiently.  
  
“You're a good listener.” I thanked her. Australian Cattle, as scrawny as she was clever. We could all learn something from such creatures. They were simple and unafraid to show emotion. I would've been glad to have her on my travels, but something in her alert posture told me she was waiting on someone else.  
  
I was parked right outside of Megaton's heavy walls, sitting cross-legged against a small grouping of rocks and watching the landscape intently. The dog by will, myself by force. Finally scared enough settlers with all my truths. Lucas Simms gave me the boot. My warning about The Enclave was the last straw.  
  
 _(have you been harrassing nathan  
  
yessir he's a damned enclave worshippin' ass and he's bound to get you all killed! he should be put down. trickery and treason!  
  
...the man is 65 years old  
  
and? i'm liable to knee him in the gut again, if necessary  
and his little robot too)_  
  
Lucas was kind enough to lower down some food, but I was now declared undesirable in every major settlement in our nation's capital. Such was the lot of a treasure hunter. You go looking for lost legends and you could count on disbelief. But like hell if I was gonna attempt Underworld. Of all the doorsteps to get turned away from, the ghoul cities hurt most. So I'd roam the outskirts, the dead suburbs and shanty shacks and small trading stops. It was closer in appearance to home, anyways. The remnants of something big and important were there, just buried under sand and mostly lost.... Los.  
  
I took a moment to pull at a small chain around my neck, pulling it out from under my shirt. I scrutinized it like I had so many times before—the weathered and dented Sunset Sarsaparilla bottlecap with the familiar spot of rust against a burnt orange logo. I turned it over, just to be sure. The bright cyan five point star on the underside was a comfort. There were more, part of a legend far older than The Wastes. But this one was special, because it was mine. It was the only thing I had on me when the ghouls I'd call kin found me, along with my trusty sniper rifle. “Remington--the Luckiest, Unluckiest Son-of-a-Gun Alive.” I would grow to have little interest in the parents who thought to dump me, only the story behind the “star bottlecaps” and their immortal mascot, Festus. The legends claimed only the pure of heart could hope to find all fifty of the damned things, and only then would Festus bestow his gifts.  
  
I had sixteen so far.  
  
Well, technically... currently... just the one. A very old friend had taken the rest.  
  
 **Mei Wong**  
  
A small, flexible plan was drawn out between little Grasshopper and myself. Pimplehead and his other absentee lackeys returned. I offered to chop up the wood for the fire. Unfortunately, only Pimplehead had the information I desired. It would complicate things. He seemed the strongest of the group. But life was stale without its challenges.  
  
THWACK. THWACK. THWACK. A woman's work is never done. Personally, I preferred the bloody bits over this chore. How did my grandmother keep even a piece of her sanity, doing nothing but ranching?  
  
Ghost was inching a little closer to my side of the fire as it grew, gently gnawing at some brush in the cracked soil. I smiled at her. I could feel the Talons at my back, peeling away with their pupils from the other side of the flames. Only Grasshopper kept his gaze down. I wondered what stories he'd heard. My skin itched strangely as I halfway listened to the others swap unsettling rumors. Vampires in Arefu, a Glowing One that could talk in Springvale. Strange Eyebots in Grayditch that seemed to watch your every move while humming old patriotic jingles. Tiny towns, idle tales. It made me miss the Mojave, in a way.  
  
THWACK. But I had business here.  
  
 _I hope Linda has a spare cooler I could borrow,_ I thought. _I wonder if she still remembers me._  
  
“What about you, miss?” One Talon cawed.  
  
THWACK. “What about _me_?” Hiding the terseness in my voice was getting more difficult. The twists in my stomach were coiling all the more. We needed to reach Andale before my impatience and The Fear crept in.  
  
“Have you got any stories?”  
  
“Oh, loads.” I paused to wipe the sweat from my brow, “I heard this one from a trader in Khan territory:  
  
Once upon a time, a girl was picking up firewood. She came upon a poisonous snake frozen in the snow. She took the snake home and nursed it back to health. One day the snake bit her on the cheek. As she lay dying, she asked the snake, "Why have you done this to me?" And the snake answered, "Look, bitch, you knew I was a snake.”  
  
“Ha. That's it? No monsters or nuthin'?”  
  
I grinned, snapping the final piece of wood like a bone, “That's it.” They'd see a monster in Andale.  
  
 **James**  
  
This was it. I was going die here. In a dilapidated, suburban house in the middle of nowhere, with a crazy old man who would not permit me to leave.  
  
I looked down at the Pipboy resting in my lap. The screen was cracked and the display distorted. I didn't know how. I vaguely knew I'd been bludgeoned by a small group of people under the guise of traders, just a few miles from a vault I needed to explore. Everything was bleary after that. A voice proclaiming “no more” they “would not have any more guests”.  
  
I woke up here... tired, hungry, wounded. How long...? Exhaustion stifled the urgency.  
  
The same voice—the old man--was muttering now, pacing across the living room with a rifle clutched tightly. He dragged feet with such a fervor, it kicked up clouds of dirt from the filth in the rugs. “People wander in here.... they wander in and they don't come out! ...Has to end, have to believe me. Gladys, oh Gladys--”  
  
I racked my brain for his name for awhile, staring over at a clock on the opposite wall. It took the form of a black cat, working mysteriously. Its teasing, too large eyes paced back and forth just as the other occupant in the house did so. I frowned at the tacky little thing, wishing I could tear it off the peeling floral wallpaper.  
  
“Harris...” I called dizzily, until my patience was stretched, “ _Harris!_ ”  
  
He stopped. I felt pity mixed with a strange form of hatred in my antagonized, delusional pain. Hatred for his haircut being so similar to mine. The lines in his face creased in patterns I knew would befall me too soon. Hatred for the incessant chanting to his deceased wife, even moreso for the bouts of sanity where we could carry conversations, form escape routes that would never see action. He was desperately clinging to a doomed path for his dead wife.  
  
He was what I was becoming.  
  
 _(but did he abandon his child  
the alpha and omega)_  
  
I leaned my head back, gaze dizzily meeting a ceiling fan caked with grime as I gnarled my fingers and pulled at my silver, unkempt hair. I hissed in musty air, drew it out shakily like it was a poison. Finally I asked the old man, “Do you have any scotch?”  
  
“Yes... yes...” Harris mumbled. He creaked over to a mint colored refrigerator. He talked again of escape. I'd heard it too many times to care or hope. Even the desire to try and send a message was thrown out. I was too weak and he was too gone.  
  
Harris handed me a glass and I grabbed the entire bottle with a quaking hand. Harris kept repeating, “We only need. We only need.”  
  
I drank from the bottle, messing with the dials on my ruined wrist computer.  
  
“Divine providence. A miracle.” I finished.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
The green meanies poured in like liquid—all at once, unstoppable, spreading rapidly anywhere there was free space. Wilde unzipped her pack in a flurry, nudging me towards an exit sign glowing dim to the left.  
  
“Run. Get to the exit.” She urged, “Don't come back for me, that's an order.”  
  
There was a tense moment of panicked lockup where I wanted to refuse. Like screaming and being smothered simultaneously. But the contract won out. Same as always. My lungs burned all the way down a long, narrow passageway towards the doors marked with a red sign. Sandbags and a long metal table marked the halfway point. I hurdled over without thinking. Landed and turned around. No time to wonder how.  
  
I could hear her herding the uglies. Breaking bottles and shattering glass. It wasn't right. This wasn't her risk to take. I was expendable, only trained to keep her alive. If she were to perish, what then? What were the rules? What was the point?  
  
I recalled Philly behind the glass and flinched, turning my head as though it would help.  
  
I noticed the janitor's closet then, marked by a broken broom and a bucket. The wooden door was rotted off its hinges. Opportunity piqued when I spied the dormant landmine. A human skeleton was curled nearby. A bone hand still rested on a grenade box and a gun. Poor bastard.  
  
The gun was useless but the mines in the box were still worthy. Just a few shotgun hits and I could draw a number of them here, set off the explosives. Maybe give her time to escape. Good. I could stay out of harm's way, but not without at least doing some harm.  
  
“I thought I told you to get out of here.” Wilde rounded the just as I returned.  
  
“You told me to get to the exit.” I argued quickly. A secret clash of relief and tension at the sight of her alive.  
  
I pulled the pin on a mine, tossing it into the distance, repeated as many times as I could. A few set off, making the rest of our attackers wary, buying time.  
  
“Light.” Wilde hissed at my side, “I need a light.”  
  
I lit a match as quickly as I could. She held one of the glowing nuka colas in her grip, a hasty strip of cloth trailed out of its neck. I lit it. Her eyes fixated on the flame eating at the darkness and cloth, then flickered determinedly to meet mine.  
  
“DUCK AND COVER!” Wilde launched the cocktail with a sudden and tremendous might. It sailed clear towards the center where our opponents had fallen back. Where it fell, the ground became an otherworldly blaze of blue-violet. The fire caused a thick panic. Dominoed to the surrounding mines. Bursts of yellow and metal.  
  
“We need to move. C'mon!” Wilde pulled at my arm, rushing us to the exit for good. Admist the burning in my lungs I felt a strange sense of regret that the planetarium was likely ruined. At the very least, we were a pair coming out alive against a platoon of horrors. Alright as it could be.  
  
We caught coughing breaths as soon as the doors behind us were barricaded. The last exhibit was small and oddly quaint. For a room being full of rockets, anyway.  
  
“The Lunar Lander.” Wilde pointed. The small, one-man craft's replica was still lit by moody lights despite its weathered appearance. A tiny placard with the words “Valiant 11” was still legible, the little American flag planted nearby still upright, but torn and dirty. It paled in comparison to the posters advertising it all over the damned capital, but that was no shocker.  
  
The satellite dish dangled down the front like bait. Wilde gained height by climbing some of the artificial “moon rocks”. Untangling it with care.  
  
Wilde used another terminal near a fire door, thankfully offering us a quick departure. I sneered. The sun was at its peak in a rare clear sky. The Washington Monument was an ugly and grim sight even in the light.  
  
I groaned when I realized it was the last stop on this little expedition.  
  
The Botherhood geeks in their silver power armor were posted on either side of a solid gate entrance. More intact than the structure it guarded. Color of rust and dried blood, identical to the blotchy scarring across my skin. The connecting fence wrapped around in a tight circle of slanted car doors, barbed wire and broken slabs of concrete. The brotherhood's emblem—a winged sword centered through a circle enclosing gears--was emblazoned proudly on a flag hanging nearby. I rolled my eyes and resolved to keep my mouth shut.  
  
“Halt!” One of the knights cried as we approached them, “No civilians past this point.”  
  
Our pace did not change. The two guards turned helmets to one another. One of them shrugged, “State your business, citizen.”  
  
Wilde held up our prize from the museum triumphantly as though it were a severed head, “I'm here to fix your radio signal.”  
  
“I know you. You can go on up," One of the knights responded, "But the corpse has to wait down here.”  
  
 _(don't say nothin  
keep your mouth shut  
don't ...get ...attached)_  
  
“Excuse you?” Wilde cocked her head.  
  
“You heard me. No undead permitted. No matter how tame.”  
  
 _Tame?_ Fuck it. Something felt like it bit me. I raised a fist and marched for him.  
  
“What did you just say about me, Smoothskin trash? I'll snap that helmet off and use it like a fuckin chowder bowl youslimeysonuva---”  
  
“ENOUGH.” Wilde cut through the air between me and the geek. I turned lax in an instant. Though beneath that, my teeth were still gritted. My would-be opponent stumbled back in surprise, like a child being scolded by someone he didn't expect a chiding from. I was more surprised she wasn't scolding _me_ for the outburst, but damn if I'd show it.  
  
Wilde squared her shoulders, “My ghoulfriend goes where I go. If there's an issue with that, you'll have to make due with your shitty signal.”  
  
The pair of guards regarded the pair of us in silence. Considering it.  
  
The sarcasm in Wilde's voice was thick with exasperation, “Or perhaps someone else will come along to fix it for free?”  
  
“Alright. You've made your point.” The other clunked. The helmets they wore distorted their voices. Like the static on the radio had forever infected their throats. Buzzing locusts echoing from within a rotted out tunnel.  
  
Clumsy codewords were exchanged through a nearby speaker. The gate parted like a sea from an ancient story.  
  
The voices beneath the helmets were unsmiling, “Clearance granted.”  
  
The inside of the Washington Monument housed nothing but a golden elevator with red rope stanchions on either side. Two more guards upheld the symmetry of the small, dirty white room. They were silent, though brimming with suspicion.  
  
“Some hospitality for you doing 'em a favor.” I remarked as the doors of the elevator rattled apart. They squealed and inched closed.  
  
“I don't understand it.” Wilde shook her head, “They've been friendly before. They've helped me take down mutants.”  
  
“Enemy of your enemy is your friend. Until that enemy is gone.”  
  
“But the enemy _isn't_ gone.”  
  
“All I'm saying's don't trust them, alright? They've taken more pot shots at my kind than I can count. ….Which reminds me, don't call me 'ghoulfriend'.”  
  
“Sorry. Why not?”  
  
Always with the asking _why_. I rubbed at my neck as my voice trailed off into a grumble, “It means we're... nevermind.”  
  
The rest of the ride up was shaky and seemed far too long. I hoped the damn thing wouldn't get stuck. A tacky patriotic song played over us. Wilde was half-humming half-bobbing along to the melody while I stared cross-armed at the dirt on my boots and a small hole in the floor.  
  
A cheerful sounding bell dinged and the elevator let us off. Wilde tripped a little and had to pause to reassert herself.  
  
“S'matter? Rads?” I asked. There were no guards posted up here for now. Fortunate.  
  
“No, I—We're just so high up, you know?” In spite of the fear, _to_ spite the fear, she donned an expression of stony resolve and moved towards the broken edge of wall that overlooked The Mall and crouched to examine a collection of blinking machines and whirring tech.  
  
“I can fix this. Simple.” I heard her mutter confidently. I spent the time she took hooking up the whos-a-whats-it dish looking for anything that might aid us. The top floor of this structure held room for very little. All the windows and the roof (if there ever was one) were long gone. Aside from a mini-nuke (which I snatched quickly), the only thing noteworthy was a filthy bedroll and a few boxes of 10mm rounds. Beneath the boxes rested a thin wrinkled comic book.  
  
“Grognak the Barbarian.” I read the title aloud. Issue 7. For one reason or another, I folded it in half and slipped it into my back pocket.  
  
“Lucky there's a toolbox up here!” Wilde was carrying on a conversation even now, when I was pacing the opposite side. “Wasters leave behind everything, don't they?”  
  
“Hm.” I answered noncommittally. I could see Three Dog's plaza—the old world's radio station headquarters, now his--in the distance, deep with the network of alleyways, transit stops and apartments. A thick gray cloud swirled and loomed in that section of the city like a burial shroud. A dust storm was brewing. We weren't likely to be able to breath, let alone travel through that mess.  
  
I rounded the corner of the exposed elevator shaft to find Wilde just finishing up.  
  
“There's a duster blowing towards Tenleytown. Ain't wise to head there yet.”  
  
She frowned as though ready to argue. But our armor was in a poor state and our ammo was near nonexistent. Adrenaline was giving way to exhaustion. She knew as well as I.  
  
The boss stood tall, dusting grit from her vault suit and cringing at the blood concentrated on her boots.  
  
“Just swell!" Wilde griped, "It's one step forward and two steps back.”  
  
“It's Washington.” I replied.  
  
She laughed even though I was not joking. Flipped the dial on her Pipboy radio. “Anything Goes” was playing. Clear as the bell that was her voice. The sound of the renewed signal seemed to instantly refill any brightness that had been chipped away.  
  
“Hear that? It's back! We did it!” She jumped, raising a gloved palm up as though to quiet me, but smiling infectiously.  
  
I squinted. She was still doing it.  
  
“Well, come on! Hi-five!”  
  
With reluctance I lifted my own palm and softly met hers.  
  
She blinked, then laughed spiritedly, “That was, by far, the worst hi-five I've ever gotten.”  
  
“Gimmee a break.” I half chortled and lit a cigarette. We stood in place for some time, looking out and down into the deadened green water in the Memorial Pool and the monuments that lay beyond it, stretched out sadly underneath the bright sky.  
  
“It's all so broken. But still beautiful. Like stained glass.”  
  
"It's just garbage."  
  
"Good garbage." Wilde insisted.  
  
I raised an eyebrow, “You are a very strange smoothskin.”  
  
“Thanks, you're not so bad yourself.” She smarted genially. Then she sighed, “Let's go home, shall we?”  
  
The word rang like the ghost of an old song. Like the banshee cry at the Super Duper Mart. Home. I reached for the comic I'd found absentmindedly. A comfort and a warning.


	6. Deus Ex Mei Wong/Charon's Back Pages/Lucky Penny

**James**  
  
“Harris... Harris are you seeing this?”  
  
The old man tripped over to the window I was parked beneath. He swept a decaying lace curtain with the back of his feeble hand, eyes widening as he did so.  
  
“More guests.” He twitched under his breath.  
  
So I wasn't completely delusional. Not yet. By my count there were five men, all decked in black armor. At the forefront was a figure glinting in grays and silver--like a knight. Too add to the strange pageantry of it all, they were perched atop a creature I'd never seen out here before.  
  
“A horse... is that really a horse?”  
  
“Of course, of course.” Harris nodded. Very slowly, I could feel the life in me returning. This was a chance. This was hope. This was a miracle.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“Order up, honey.” Nova set the bowl of dismal mush down in front of me. Wilde had shooed me out so she could take a bath, but not before insisting I eat some “real food”. That was an order, she said.  
  
“You don't got anything else, do you?”  
  
Gob paused from whistling along to the newly tuned radio, “Sorry, pal. Mirelurk soup's it for today.”  
  
The uncomfortably beige slop seemed to gurgle on its own. Looked like it had a damn sock in it. Smelled like it had a damn sock in it.  
  
How was this “real” food? Sweets would do me just fine. They were real. They existed.  
  
“Gob?”  
  
“Huh.”  
  
“You got any candy in this dump? Cake?”  
  
Dogmeat perked up her ears at the sound of Gob banging around his kitchen. I set the bowl of unidentified goop on the floor for her. Waste not, want not and all that. At least _she_ seemed happy with it. Dogmeat had been waiting outside the gates to greet us; her leg like new. Along with Remington, who'd been lazily giggling, shooting at ant antennas and watching them “duel”. He'd asked about Mei Wong again. His goofy face crestfallen when we told him the truth. We hadn't seen her.  
  
We made good time coming back. Knowing exactly where the feral ghouls were congregating this go around allowed me to find a different route. Safer.  
  
Gob was still slamming around cabinets behind his bar, “What about.... liquorice?”  
  
“No.”  
  
“Mints?”  
  
“Absolutely not.”  
  
“Uhhh.... Swedish fish?”  
  
“What do I look like, some kinda monster?”  
  
“I ain't gonna answer that... I got... ah!”  
  
He disappeared to a back room. The saloon was quiet today. Empty save Nova and an ex-raider I recognized, named Jericho. He looked like he wanted to say something to me. I shot him the meanest look I could muster, and he looked away. Good.  
  
Gob returned with a mound of sour gummies in a relatively clean bowl. He even brought a fork.  
  
“You could've just thrown me the bag.” I told him.  
  
“Hey, fuck you! I'm runnin' a proper establishment, here! Eat it or weep.”  
  
We both laughed. Jericho was back to staring at me from behind a glass.  
  
 **Mei Wong**  
  
“I expect you gentlemen to be on your best behavior. You're guests here, after all.”  
  
Pimplehead spat. So much for manners. “Where's the Lone Wanderer?”  
  
“Hold your horse, big guy. We greet the neighbors first.”  
  
The town was just as I left it fifteen years ago. Sleepy and unassuming, inhabited by two families. The town that taught me how to distrust, how to want revenge. The final mold to crush all the light and replace it with something bigger, brighter.  
  
Linda did not seem to remember me, and neither did the others. She shook the men's hands with the same sugary kindness as long before, a smile sheathing something else.  
  
I was hoping she'd remember my face.  
  
Oh well. It'd still be fun.  
  
 **James**  
  
Harris wanted to go out, to “rescue” them. I managed to hold him at bay somehow. We watched like children—aware that something we didn't fully understand was happening, but incapable of looking away.  
  
The woman decked in chrome and light clothing was planning something, that much was clear. I saw it in the way she whispered into one of the village children's ear. Pleasantries were passed around with showiness, while the armored crew seemed lost. A loose-limbed man slipped away, crawling under the foundation of the house when out of view. The largest of the men was led away from the house into a small shed across the street while the rest, along with everyone in the neighborhood save the children, disappeared into the home. The big fellow did not return. The scrawny one did, however, before he could be missed.  
  
“What's happening? They went inside?” Harris dragged himself away from the window and into another room, cursing under his breath about finding his glasses. I stayed, eyes screwed to that grimy glass like every heartbeat depended on it, like I could siphon strength from the figure who rode in on the horse.  
  
The neighborhood's kids were playing catch, inching closer and closer to Harris' domain at the end of the street. I cracked the window slightly, unsure of why I needed to stay stealthy but obliging to do so regardless.  
  
The noise of the glass shrieking open got their attention. The girl brought her chin up to rest on the sill with the boy following her gesture. They simply stared at me with an unnerving kind of numbness resting in the pools of their eyes.  
  
I cleared my throat, “I-I uh... Could you tell me who those men out there are, please?”  
  
“They're guests.” The girl answered flatly.  
  
“Yes... but, they're a little different, aren't they?”  
  
The boy, “You mean they're ready for dinner? Not like you, being rude with Harris.”  
  
The girl flicked her playmate's skull with a frown bunching up her face.  
  
This wasn't proving helpful. Still, I persisted, “The.... guest... on the horse, what did she tell you?” I asked.  
  
“The princess? She said to get faaaar away from the house. On account of the See Four.”  
  
“We don't have to get married anymore!” The girl looked to the boy and nodded with pride.  
  
 **Mei Wong**  
  
“Where's Tony?” I heard a no-name Talon ask. Pimplehead was Tony. Who cared.  
  
Grasshopper slipped through the door soundlessly. “Taking a dump.”  
  
The rest of the Talons accepted this answer. I nodded to myself. Of course. I couldn't let the Fear take complete hold now. I was helping Lydia wash scuffed dishes, while her husband ranted about 'commies' in the corner and some mess about 'precious bodily fluids'. There was one other couple with us, the whole adult population circled around a plastic table covered in a sun-faded, yellow polka dot cloth. The radio coughed a dusty rendition of an old patriot song with fifes and happy snares. Everyone took pause when the signal seemed to magically reestablish itself. Not a whisper of static.  
  
“My!” Lydia brought an arthritis twisted fist to her breast and smiled wistfully to her ugly curtains, “It's never sounded so nice! We'll get to hear the President so much better now, dear!”  
  
Her husband ignored her completely, having returned to his previous ravings. Lydia was utterly unphased, acting in her own one-man show like she no doubt did a thousand times before. She lifted a lid from the bubbling ceramic pot on the stove. “Try the roast, Sally! Please!”  
  
She held a spoon to my lips with a motherly hand. Just five years my senior and her hands were so veined, so cracked and twisted. Poor creature. For her sake only, I would make it quick.  
  
“It's divine.” I told her. She bit her lip as little tears welled up in her eyes. I added, “I think it could use a kick, don't you? I have some spices. From the Super Duper Mart.”  
  
She exclaimed jovially, following me out across her rotting porch with melodrama etched permanently into her face. I noticed one Talon tapping his knee under the table impatiently, frowning.  
  
“...I think there's something sour with these people, Jeb. And I don't see The Lone Wanderer anywhere.” He whispered to his friend. His companion waved him away distractedly, eyeing the hissing stove with gluttonous greed. Grasshopper took the hint, slinking out and twisting behind the house in a sprint.  
  
Ghost was tied carefully to a broken fence post near the tiny shed. She backed up nervously at the sight of Lydia. I calmed her with a word in her uneven ears and a pat on the neck.  
  
I had to tell her. She needed to remember me. “Do you recall about 15 years ago, Lydia, the wretched thing from Two Sun you took in for a few days?”  
  
“Two Sun. Two Sun.” She breathed loftily. I continued (not so much for her anymore as it was for me) as I searched through one off the large cloth saddlebags Ghost easily carried:  
  
“Do you remember trading her back to slavers for two injured men?”  
  
“Too skinny for any decent meal, too young. Even a stew would be bones and nothing else!”  
  
I found the particular detonator I needed and clutched it stealthily in my hand. _One of these days I'll have to get organ-ni-zized_. The Cowboy's niave drooly voice rang within my mind. I calmly unhitched my horse and climbed into her simply made saddle. Lydia was wincing in my direction as she knotted her hands deeper into her pastel apron. “You _do_ remember!” I said, “Fun!”  
  
Lydia was backing into her porch slowly as I bore into her eyes before donning my sunglasses, “You don't have to pretend anymore.” She nodded in return, clinging to a rotting beam for support.  
  
“KNOCK KNOCK.” I called.  
  
Grasshopper's nasally tone bounced from a distance like a happy prewar jingle, “Who's there?!”  
  
I smiled softly. The punchline was for me and only me, “Orange.”  
  
 **James**  
  
The boom was mercilessly loud against the still afternoon light. Red-yellow rose from the pitch black gaps under the home's foundation. Decrepit siding buckled and burst outward, took the roof, collapsed it, leaving flame to gnaw the rest. The air around the place distorted with smoke and heat, as though reality itself was bending to the intruder's will. The figure in chrome only reined her steed back from the blast slightly, staring into it with teeth, chin upturned in quiet pride.  
  
Harris perplexedly opened the door of his own domain. And for the first time since waking up, I felt a seizable moment.  
  
“W-Where are you going? Come back!”  
  
I was jelly-kneed and tunnel-visioned. I cut across Harris' barren lawn without stopping to even grab a weapon. I could only clutch my shattered Pipboy to my chest like it was my last thread of life. Just as I had cradled my newborn child on the road to Megaton, twenty-odd years ago.  
  
The woman got off her horse and paused to chew two red pills from within a rectangular yellow tin. Then, she darted into the tiny shack.  
  
My hobbling steps stopped when I reached her rare creature. I couldn't help but circle it out of burgeoning curiosity.  
  
“Amazing. Simply amazing.” My hand stretched to graze its ghoulish coat lightly, but not before the tiny shack door behind me burst open. The hand that grabbed my ankle was digging and desperate, yanking me down and dragging until I tumbled back down a long, dark set of wooden stairs too narrow for the both of us.... three of us. I cringed painfully and scraped myself into a sitting position at the bottom to find the mysterious woman had tumbled down with me. The meaty ankle-biter was now at the top of the stairs, in the doorway, running clumsy into sunlight.  
  
She hissed in a language I did not quite comprehend. _Ta-maude!_ Whatever the meaning, it sounded like something I would scold my own daughter for.  
  
The stranger leapt up quickly, knocking a chair with fresh cut ropes over and climbing the steps in twos after her presumed target. At first the thought to follow was dormant—my screaming muscles only wanted the cold floor and my reeling mind focused solely on the fire glow of light fixtures above. My ribs felt cracked and my ankle twisted.  
  
I would've stayed, at least until the screaming outside the shack stopped. But I made the mistake of turning my head. My eyes found two long tables, covered with blood and smeared in viscera. Strange metal cages lined the walls, interjected by a few refrigerators. Rusted metal hooks hung from the dark ceiling. Some of them swung slowly without reason.  
  
It was the sight of a huge side of meat dangling from one of those hooks that prompted me to move. A lightbulb above flickered. The shape hanging from the hook was distinctly human. A sick kind of realization hit the back of my throat like bile. I forced myself up from the floor and made my way up the stairs with catches in my breath that hurt from every side.  
  
I went unnoticed in the background when my feet found the outdoors again, dizzy with stars in my eyes. I could only fall to my knees and watch the two quicker fighters struggle. The male was obviously losing. He seemed to be hanging on solely by mass. Blood trailed down the side of his face in a river, the flesh of his cheek appeared to have been ripped away by teeth.  
  
He was swinging blindly with an old street sign. The woman in chrome was sweeping past his blows with ease. Just as solid, but lighter. Faster. She laughed coldly when he finally went down panting. Blood in her mouth. She took his weapon from him and tossed it just out of reach. As soon as he began a desperate scramble towards it, she revealed a wrought hatchet at her hip and swung down upon an unfortunate ankle. The dreadful crack of bone did not bother me, neither did the sight of blood, what was troublesome was the fact that she seemed to find it _funny_.  
  
“You answer my questions and I make this fast, Pimplehead.” Her voice was loud and easygoing over her opponent's howls. He twisted on his back and made the mistake of croaking out “why”.  
  
“ _I'm_ ASKING.” Suddenly her tone was shakier and more like a snarl. She brought the hatchet down again. It was a heavy thing, but she made it seem like a butterknife. The man she called 'Pimple head' screamed down at a stump where his foot once connected.  
  
“Who put out the bounty on the Blondie?”  
  
“I... what?” He pushed the words out through twisted, pained breaths.  
  
“The Vault Gal! Lone Wanderer! Who wants her head?” The woman rose her hatchet in punctuation. Pimplehead screamed in objection, raising a hand for her to stop. She paused mid-air. Expectantly.  
  
“...It was.. It was Burke. Mr. Burke. He works for Tenpenny.”  
  
“And? Where'd you last see him?”  
  
“Weeks ago. Rivet City. That's all I know. Pl... please..”  
  
The woman rolled her eyes, “Boring.” She brought the hatchet down into the center of his his skull with gruesome finality. The urge to move hit me again and smarted like a whip. I got up, too dizzy, fell once more.  
  
She noticed. “You there. You look like something the cat puked up.”  
  
I shielded my face instinctively. I didn't dare run now. She stepped closer, glowered at me from the other side of her horse.  
  
“Hey, I know you! You're that Dad!” She exclaimed this brightly as she procured a large number of sharp tools from one of her saddlebags. “I can see the resemblance. Apple doesn't fall too far, does it?”  
  
I looked away as she went to work on the man she'd quite literally axed. “You... you know my daughter? Is she safe?”  
  
“Safe's pretty subjective out here, huh? She's _alive_ , if that's what you mean.”  
  
“She can't know where I am. Please...”  
  
“Relax. Your little family drama is none of my business. Hm... You're in a bad way, aren't you, Dad. You aimed to please where you should've aimed to kill?”  
  
“Yes.” I admitted, feeling as though I were in a dream, “My Pipboy is broken.”  
  
She paused from slicing at Pimplehead and leered down at me for awhile. Went back to searching through another bag. And for a second I thought it was all over, she was going to kill me, to pull me from my misery. Instead, she threw something at my feet.  
  
A flare.  
  
“You fire that when the sun starts to set. I have a friend that can fix that Pip-thing for you. He's a fool and a flirt, but he's.... an honorable sort. You understand?”  
  
“I'm afraid I don't have--”  
  
She threw something else. A tiny threaded coinpurse. I opened it with trembling fingers.  
  
“There's only nine caps here.” I said.  
  
“You can count, too!” She laughed at the joke I wasn't in on, “Cool.”  
  
I stammered nothing words while she finished... whatever she was doing to the unfortunate soul in the middle of the town. Every look she gave me was full of judgement, and I wasn't sure I was worthy. She sighed and rolled me a can of beans.  
  
“Don't just stare at it, _eat it_.”  
  
I cracked open the pop-top tin quickly. Her accomplice—the skinny youngster in black armor—joined us with a tiny square icebox. I watched the woman pack various organs of Pimplehead's inside with gloved hands. Years of research and doctoring had taught me to withstand being squeamish. But as I stared into my beans, and suddenly didn't feel quite as hungry.  
  
“OLD MAN.” The woman shouted. I looked up, as did Harris from his frozen stance across the way. “You take care of those little ones. Vice-a Versa.”  
  
She mounted her horse a final time after packing away the cooler. She nodded at the scrawny figure in black and told him how to get to someplace called 'The Temple'.  
  
It took all the courage I had left, but I finally asked, “Who are you?”  
  
“I'm just _leaving_.” She smiled at me with the sunlight bouncing off her armor at all angles, “And you don't know where I'm headed. Understand?”  
  
I bowed my head. She clicked her tongue, bringing her twisted mare to trot through smoke.  
  
“Don't get dead, Dad!” She laughed. I couldn't tell if she was sincere in her good wishes or not. I could only remain kneeling tiredly, waiting for the sun to set.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“I remember you. What are you doing out here?”  
  
Jericho pulled up a seat directly across from me. His voice growled, grinning low with the scent of whiskey. Dogmeat emitted a low growl from the floor.  
  
“Listen, I'm outta the game but I got a buddy in Evergreen, lookin' for a runner.”  
  
I said nothing. Chewed another worm. Part of me wished he would just go away. Just like all things dealing with the past.  
  
“It's good caps. Hey, are you listening to me? How about it?”  
  
He laid a hand on the table. I picked up the fork and jammed it right between the thin space of wood between his middle and pointer fingers. He scooted his chair back in surprise, eyes frozen on the utensil frozen upright between us.  
  
“How about this: you never speak to me again, or I'll kick your teeth so far down, you'll be able to chew your own shit for two weeks.”  
  
Jericho got the message. Stood. Rubbed nervously at his chin with the hand I'd almost maimed. Left. I finished my meal and did the same. Except I paused to give Gob his kitchenware back.  
  
“Remind me never to give you silverware again.” Gob muttered.  
  
“Still got hands.”  
  
He cackled. Bobbed his head towards the entrance. “There's a basket of laundry for Wilde by the door, courtesy of Nova. Some clean clothes for you in there, too. Guessed on your size, but wasters can't be choosers, yeah? Grab 'em on your way out.”  
  
“Er, thanks.”  
  
I paid him with money Wilde had insisted on sharing since The Monument and thanked Nova. All of this accompanied a hyperaware clumsiness that came with suddenly having to deal with people. The sun was sinking low when I stepped outside. The air was crisp and cool. I popped a Rad-X and briefly heard two guards posted on Megaton's wall laughing about how “The Cowboy left in a hurry”.  
  
I felt better heading back to Wilde's pieced-together shelter with its lopsided metal door. Back to purpose.  
  
She was messing around with a chemistry set, it looked like. She stopped without taking off her comically large goggles to take the basket of clothing from my hands and coo over Dogmeat.  
  
“Did you eat?” She asked finally.  
  
“...Yes.” It was the truth, wasn't it?  
  
I ignored her robot's friendly greeting and navigated over piles of crap to the workbench by her bobblehead stand. I set to work cleaning and reloading all our weapons.  
  
“I cleared out the spare bedroom for you upstairs. It was Wadsworth's, but I think he can deal.”  
  
The robot clicked in the corner. Christ. Another reason for it to want to kill me.  
  
“No need for that.” I told her plainly.  
  
“Why?”  
  
“I don't sleep.”  
  
“That's impossible. How?”  
  
“I just don't.”  
  
“You could try counting Brahmin, that's what my father always suggested.” She joked, but there was concern in her words.  
  
“Vault Dweller wouldn't know a Brahmin from a foot.”  
  
“I wasn't born under that rock, you know. ”  
  
“Then where're you from?”  
  
“I... haven't got a clue.” Sad words. I felt odd for probing at the subject, so I uncharacteristically searched for a new one. I found it in my back pocket.  
  
“I.... uh... found this at The Monument.”  
  
Wilde made a strange, excited noise as I handed her the comic book. She flipped through the pages, all the bold, dusty ink reflecting in her eyes.  
  
“Grognak seven? I don't have this one! Do you think it still has the crosswords in the back? Amata and I used to do those together.” Hinted melancholy again. I really had to stop opening my damn jaw so much.  
  
We worked in silence for the rest of the night. Her with the stimpaks and I with the weapons. The need for sleep took hold eventually. She yawned, dropping her tools haphazardly around her work table. She laid the newfound comic over on the dresser housing the little framed stitching of the Bible quote, and took one final pause to set a novelty bobblehead on the radio near it.  
  
“The spare room's still yours if you need it. I'm a heavy sleeper, so feel free to... do whatever. Just make sure Dogmeat doesn't chew the legs off the furniture again, if you'd be so kind?”  
  
“As you wish.” I answered. I was caught in a weird sort of dread at the prospect of being alone with my thoughts. When I had somewhere to go, I could focus on the road. And the Ninth Circle had rarely been empty.  
  
I could feel Wilde's eyes, worried and sad, on the back of my head as she tread lightly upstairs. “Goodnight.”  
  
“Hrmph.” Her bedroom door shut softly. Dogmeat was asleep; twitching and dreaming near my feet. _Probably thinking about chasing raiders_ , I snorted to myself.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
My bedroom was the smallest room in the house. There was only enough room for an old office desk, a lonely bed and a filing cabinet. Strung up lights warmed the always present draft in the room—coming from a lopsided window centered over my wire framed cot. Vault 101 had been far more spacious and sterile. But this place _lived_. It creaked and breathed and welcomed. It made me feel less alone.  
  
I was inspecting Charon's contract again. I'd taken my Pipboy off and set it on the desk, propped atop a thick book titled “Lying: Congressional Style”. I clicked the light on 'low'; just as I'd done in Underworld. Barrows said I needed to prod him with questions. But that was starting to feel wrong.  
  
The light didn't reveal anything new. The same logo revealed itself under words too faded to read. And I had tried to read them; not even a magnifying glass was useful. There was a raised seal at the bottom of the page near my newly added signature. But it'd been torn away. The pattern of the wound showed that it'd been done away with on purpose.  
  
Only more questions. I sighed and shut my Pipboy down. I wanted to understand. To be there. And not just because I liked answers, or because he was someone who needed help. But because he was becoming a friend. Somewhere to belong.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
For a while I could only think to work in the quiet. Loading, repairing, cleaning. The guns and the armor. Not the house. I wouldn't dare try to sort that mess. I bathed, desperately avoiding my reflection in the bathroom mirror.  
  
But even all that didn't eat up enough time. I clicked on the radio for some quiet noise and sat in an uneven, prewar chair centered in the room. Grounded myself in the _here_ , the now. Among the weapons and holotapes, she had gathered everything useless and arbitrary Stuffed them into little corners and cramped shelves. A collection of this and thats--obviously never used; but most certainly studied like they were precious jewels: Piles of pre-war pajamas with clashing, horrid patterns. A shaving kit. Packs of gum. Dinnerware, cake molds, a pressure cooker. A leather jacket emblazoned with “Tunnel Snakes” on the back. Garland (?) and gardening equipment. Cow skulls. Coffee-stained lingere catalogues. Those made me blush. Pencils and hotel soaps.  
  
Junk, upon junk, upon junk.  
  
 _”I've lost all ambition, for worldly acclaim...”_ The radio sirened and glowed warmly, drawing my eye. I found myself staring at the dancing little hula figurine in its gentle wave. The music grew louder and clouded the room.  
  
I remembered.  
  
 **Charlie**  
  
 _...I just want to be the one you love..._  
  
The radio and the hula dancer taped to the dashboard was an offensive contrast to the world outside. The bus shook and rattled with the noise of protests below. The driver—a man who looked as lifeless and squishy as bread dough—hummed as though this route was a quaint little routine.  
  
Everyone had lost their goddamned minds. I rested my head against the window, glaring at a single tear in the vinyl seats ahead and nothing else. Said no words. Frank couldn't seem to shut up in the seat beside me, pointing:  
  
“That new Power Armor looks good on our guys, don't it?”  
  
I turned my gaze on the scene outside. An ebbing swarm of civilians were protesting, rioting in the streets below. Power armored soldiers formed a wall along the road, giving the bus a clear path to wherever the hell we were going. There were screams of rage, screams of fear as the soldiers spewed gas into the throngs of people. Not a single townsperson without a white doctor's mask or some manner of thin cloth to cover their faces. The masses poured and jerked like an open wound. There was a plume of thick, white smoke rising from the nearest building. A pet store. A bizzare amount of iguanas were darting out from the smashed in windows.  
  
The jeers and the painted signs all declared the things everyone on the bus already knew: the price of gas was too high, disease was spreading, monstrosities by the people up top were being swept under the rug without the slightest hint of remorse.  
  
 ** _TOO LATE_**. The simplest banner I could read. And the most true.  
  
“Old Oney.” Phillip had told us the name of the small town. He had family from out here, in Germantown. What a welcome back. It was tame, compared to others. The concrete wasn't running red yet.  
  
Philly was in the seat ahead of us, hunched in a permanent way with his hands cupped around his ears like he wanted to tear them out.  
  
“Close the window.” He said, “We'll catch what they got.”  
  
Frank pretended not to hear him, laughing instead at the innocents being drenched below. My brother could be a disgusting person. I was learning it more and more.  
  
“Close the damn window!” Philly yelled again, near to tears. I blinked out of my own little bubble and stood, sliding the metal at the top of the glass and dragging it up. Secured it closed. A glass bottle hit the reinforced glass and shattered into splinters of brown. I could barely react. Not when the world around us was blowing up with a hundred times more noise.  
  
A big hat three seats down barked at me to sit down. For once, I did what I was told.  
  
“What, you think the fuckin window's gonna protect you?” Frank mocked our wilted friend, “Get outta here. Catching the plague's the least of our worries.”  
  
He was right. A shithead, but right. Where we were going, there were things worse than the end of the world.  
  
“It's your damned fault.” Frank was talking at me now, clamping his hand down on my shoulder and shaking me in sarcastic brotherly love, “Couldn't follow fucking orders like the rest of us.”  
  
Frank was my twin. Fraternal. I “lucked out with all the good”, he always said. Whether that was looks or character, I wasn't sure. Ha ha. A funny joke.  
  
Nothing felt like a joke anymore. Everything was...  
  
”Burning. Ugly...” Philly was rocking slower, but tearing at his ears more. I kneed his seat gently and he stopped. Still blithering, but at least he wasn't digging into himself so much.  
  
“Ain't gonna say nothing?” Frank smiled at me in a threatening way I knew too well. White teeth and bleeding gums. Blue eyes and sloppy black hair.  
  
 _No._  
  
“Never changes.”  
  
The bus sputtered as we neared the vault. We were far beyond any civilization, now, however chaotic. End of the line. Time to say go ** _OOOOD MORNING CAPITAL WASTELAND--_**  
  
 **Charon**  
  
I started awake in the chair at the sound of Three Dog's loud, merciless cheering for the sun's rays. Without him, I doubted anyone would rise and shine again.  
  
The pain in my shoulder was back, and it was digging in with fangs. The legs of the ugly chair hobbled like it was going to throw me out of balance, but I clawed into the tattered arms and steadied myself.  
  
Wilde was leaning bleary-eyed and messy against the railing above. She was dressed in shabby blue pajamas that were too big. It was odd, seeing her out of the armor. I always wore mine.  
  
“You okay? I thought you didn't sleep.” Her voice sounded groggy and cracked, a little like a ghoul's.  
  
“Tried counting Brahmin.” I replied as I stretched back in the chair for a moment. The damn thing threatened to overturn once more; I fumbled and cursed with it before regaining balance again. That made the boss laugh, and I felt mildly better.  
  
I would recover, I always did. I was just thankful she didn't ask me anything more about the way I was holding my bad shoulder. About the _how_ or the _why_. Or the was.  
  
 **Penny**  
  
Sammy lowered his binoculars and itched at his scout's uniform. “Still nothing.” The kids that started lamplight used to wear those little uniforms, I was told. Why anyone would wanna _keep_ wearing that, I didn't know.  
  
“Rory will be here.” I said.  
  
Squirrel clicked his teeth, “Why do we have to walk all the way out here? He should just meet _us_ at the Cave.”  
  
“Idiot.” Sammy snapped, “Do you want him telling other Mungos where we live?”  
  
Rory wouldn't do that. But this was the way it'd always been—journey out into the empty valley once a month to swap supplies with the adults. Exactly at sunset. Sammy had his eagle eyes and I had the gun. Squirrel was no use here, he only knew computers. But he was a new arrival and needed to know the routine.  
  
I was the eldest of the small group at age twelve. I'd lived at Lamplight for about six years. I vaguely remembered living in a blown out town years before. Until the night my father left. A young woman named Sydney had found me and my brother Joseph, barely surviving. She took us to Lamplight and that was that.  
  
The caverns were nice, but Joseph would have to leave soon. No one over fifteen was allowed to stay. It hurt to remember my mirror image—black and tall and resourceful—would be separated from me, after all we had to go through to be there in the first place. The other kids wouldn't understand. Most of them had arrived alone.  
  
“Someone's coming.” Sammy grinned and struggled to perch upon a rock. I boosted him to reach the top.  
  
His excitement turned sour in an instant. “Oh no.” He said.  
  
“What? What is it? What do you see?” Squirrel wiped at some snot beneath his nose.  
  
Sammy jumped down and crouched with us, “Not Rory. Four Mungos, spiky armor. Three rifles, one ripper.”  
  
Without a doubt, raiders. Or worse.  
  
“Did they see us?” I put a hand on my scoped magnum. If they did, we were doomed. There was no running back to Lamplight, for they would follow. And that would doom everyone else.  
  
“I.... I don't know. But they have dogs, too.”  
  
Shit.  
  
“Everybody, lay low.” I hissed. If we could make it till nightfall without being found, we had a fighting chance. If not, we'd be forced to fight.  
  
 **James**  
  
Harris had invited me back inside, but I'd declined. I could only watch and stare as the daylight shimmered orange again and then shifted to cool blues. I'd fired the flare, but here I was, a broken man still stranded in the aftermath of somebody else's rage.  
  
The sound of a motor stirred my aching head. I rubbed at my eyelids upon seeing it: A motorcycle. I real, working motorcycle. It eeeeked to a slow halt in the sand right in front of the ruined house I'd been viewing all day. The figure it carried was chubby and hardy just the same. Bearded and baby-faced. Confused and shrewd. Like most people in the world, two sides of their own battered coin.  
  
The Biker unsecured his a strange helmet and finally noticed me. He paused to take a stick of gum from his breastpocket and chewed it thoughtfully, glancing back once at the blown up house with raised eyebrows.  
  
His voice was very peculiar. Hard 'r's that plonked through a swampy drawl: “Are you the one that set off that flare, sir?”  
  
“...Yes?” I did not feel at risk with this man. In fact, there was more puzzlement than anything else. He was surprisingly warm, for being so obviously roughspun by these elements. He got off his bike and approached me.  
  
“Alright. What's she want?”  
  
“I'm sorry, what?” What did _who_ want?  
  
He groaned, clearly at his wit's end, “Mei Wong! The smoke was one thing, but those red colored flares are hers. I'd know 'em.”  
  
In truth, my rescuer(?) never did give me her name, but I could jump to a conclusion with the best of them.  
  
“Ah!” I snapped my fingers, revealing the tiny pouch I'd received from this Mei Wong hours ago. His deep brown eyes were sparking up. Obviously the meager amount of caps were important to him, in some respect. I spoke quickly as he took it from my fingers: “I need my Pipboy fixed. And I was told you could do that.”  
  
The man chewed thoughtfully. He was so oddly dressed—with a sniper rifle and a guitar case secured to his back. By my inference, he'd caught too many old westerns on leftover holotapes. And read far too many comic books. “I'm something of a tinkerer, that's true. What about you, silver fox? Why'd Sally leave you to your lonesome?”  
  
“Er... my name is James.” I stood up with his help, “I'm just a doctor. Looking for... something.” And running from something, all the same.  
  
“Oh! Pleased to meet you. I'm Remington. Remy to my pals.” He shook my hand without warning. The tired bones in my arms shouted in protest, but I tried to hide my wince behind a smile. Remington motioned over to his vehicle and cleared out a space in the sidecart.  
  
“I'll get you a helmet back near Springvale. You're gonna need these goggles, though.” He ripped the riding glasses from a cracked garden gnome statuette previously occupying the seat. “And if you wouldn't mind holding onto Marlon Brando, I'd 'preciate it.”  
  
Marlon... who? Ok, I took it that was the little gnome's name. I squinted at the heavy decoration as I secured myself painfully in the cramped pod. It squinted back at me with a cracked smile and chipped nose.  
  
“Well, jeez,” Remington chirped as he donned his helmet again. It looked like... something not of this world. He handed me his other hat, “Hold onto that, too, will you? These folks have a lot of cleaning up to do. And... have we met? I swear I've seen your face somewhere before.”  
  
“You know my daughter?” I asked him. “The... girl from Vault 101.”  
  
My little girl. With immediate threats dashed and hope brimming from the man in the ridiculous cowboy gear, sadness crept in.  
  
“She cannot know where I am.” I insisted. I would not put my child in more danger.  
  
“Alright, James, if that's what you want.” Remington putted and revved up his remarkable machine with a giggly sort of grin, and we were off.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
It took another full day before the dust storm finally passed over GNR. Wilde and I were arguing over whether or not salisbury steaks were _actually technically_ edible when Three Dog announced it over the airwaves as though clean water had just magically begun flowing through all the rivers and basins. He even addressed Wilde directly. “Come by the studio, kid. You and I need to have a chat.”  
  
She leapt (literally) at the chance. The aforementioned frozen meal was thrown to the ground as she rushed out of the minuscule kitchen. She was a lit up like fury--grabbing stims, gathering the guns, raising her emptied pack into the prewar chair.  
  
“We have to gear up! We have to go!” Wilde was not commanding, but cheering. Dogmeat barked by the door and wagged her tail. “Pack cola! Pack food! And something other than snack cakes, _please_.” She disappeared into the bathroom. Out of sight. I could smile.  
  
We would finally meet Three Dog. She had a chance at locating her old man now. And for the first time since I could remember, I wholeheartedly wanted to follow.  
  
 _(fool. don't)_  
  
Too late.


	7. Galaxy News Radio

**Wilde**  
  
We were somewhere along the edge of the inner city when the loudspeakers started going off.  
  
 _“In fourteen hundred and ninety-two your mother and my mother were hanging clothes around the mulberry bush...”_  
  
The alleyway wasn't nearly as obstacled as the tunnels, but it was still narrow. Charon and I pressed side-by-side at the same pace with Dogmeat zigging up ahead. Her ears and nose were pointed and primed, ready to alert us of any impending enemies.  
  
“Dog!” Charon called, “Don't go sniffing at any of the mines!”  
  
Dogmeat wagged her tail and carried on through rusted out playground equipment.  
  
“She understand that? I hope she understood that.” Charon whispered under his breath.  
  
“More than you or I could ever comprehend, I think.”  
  
We stepped around the deactivated landmines and grenades with care. It was somehow safer than traipsing headlong into a gang of mutants. Charon said there was “some loon” here who was watching from high above in the old apartments.  
  
Apparently, this man was the very same one who'd set up the loudspeakers. His voice gushed forth from every angle with shifting emotions, on the verge of tears both ecstatic and grieving:  
  
“Back! Back, you lousy wyrms! We trapped the light in a glass and then we let it fall to the ground!”  
  
“Ah, shaddup!” Charon shook his fist at a window in the brick building towering above to our left. “Don't listen to him, he does this everytime.”  
  
“Has he ever set these charges off?”  
  
“--WYRMS--” Speakers arranged around the walls whined and hissed like water hitting a hot pan.  
  
“ _Go piss up a rope!_ No, he just gets up at the crack of dawn and screams at the sun. Talking the same old mess--”  
  
“I see you, scorpio! Dueling with madness! Arise, align, to carry aquarius' burden! Gemini is a hungry ghost, year of the snake! Taurus fixed to follow!”  
  
Charon made a full stop. His boots crunched in the debris.  
  
“...That's..” My companion got that trance-like look on his face again, then tugged gently on my elbow to quicken our steps, “C'mon. We gotta get out of here. Now.”  
  
“ _Hermes' net is set_ ”  
  
“ _Zeus' die is cast_ ”  
  
 **“THE WYRM IS HUNGRY”**  
  
The feverish figure was fully visible now, perched out on a balcony Charon was eyeballing nervously. The farther the man upstairs went in his speech, the more urgently we moved. Dogmeat was already out, barking from the clearing of a wide main street.  
  
I froze where the alleyway ended and looked back. The man stopped barking into an old square megaphone to lock eyes with me. He waved like a toy soldier from atop an anthill. I swore there was a malaise grin plastered into his face as he dropped something to the ground below. A grenade?  
  
 ** _“And I shall abide!”_**  
  
I could feel Charon pulling me into an old 'Life Preservation Station' on the immediate corner. My partner slammed the locking door of the vessel into place while he held me to his chest. We toppled and spun with the boom, but I held fast to his shielding embrace. When the door of the old shelter broke, we separated and rolled out onto dust and broken concrete.  
  
“Wilde! You alright?” I heard my companion call. I could hear Dogmeat, too, still barking alarms in the distance.  
  
I coughed and sputtered. The sound of Charon's steady footfalls were fast approaching. My head felt dizzy, like it was leaking sand. My arms were springing with dull pain from trying to catch my fall.  
  
“Everything's fine!” I yelled back. It was a half-truth, but sometimes those were needed to keep going.  
  
He stood over me while I struggled to lift myself up. Jagged and tall and dark against the mean sun. The shadow of death, and the shield against it.  
  
He offered his hand slowly, “Come on. There's still a ways to go.”  
  
I took it, but not before struggling to get up myself.  
  
“There's no shame in taking my help, Boss.”  
  
“It's _Wilde_.” I coughed again in the rubble and smoke, “And thank you.”  
  
There was no going back through the alleyway now. Not when it was riddled to dust.  
  
“That man." I had to ask, "How did you know he was going to--”  
  
“Unlucky guess. Let's go.” We matched each other's pace again—slowed as we passed a small prewar cafe. Its brick red porch littered with tattered husks of blue umbrellas. I mentioned never feeling rain before.  
  
“Hmph.” Charon grunted. He was visibly shaken underneath his usual solidity, staring up at every speaker that was left crookedly rigged on the boulevard with winding unease. His hands were gripping tighter to his gun, thumb running across the carved end. “Unlucky guess” Load of bull. He was assuredly battered by another memory.  
  
I wanted to stop him. There was no shame asking for _my_ help, either. I was here. I was patient, I could listen.  
  
But the wasteland would take that moment away like the deadly spinning wheel it was.  
  
It started with Dogmeat's barks, getting more and more frenzied as we drew closer to the concrete cutout of an office building. The sound sent Charon and me into a full sprint through the smoke. Dogmeat had rushed for a mutant. Charon was the first to get close enough to engage, cackling as he did so. I may have been behind, but I waited just until Dogmeat distracted the beast enough to turn its back. I blasted the mutant to neon against gray walls before it could even see me.  
  
Charon frowned, reloading, “I had 'em. You stole my kill.”  
  
I snorted a laugh, “What, like there's points?”  
  
“Never know.” I smiled. It was good to hear him talking again.  
  
“Alright, Cher. Next time, you get the killshot.”  
  
A triumphant howl interjected. Human. I recognized the voice, one of Reilly's Rangers.  
  
“Aaay! Where there's a will, there's a Wilde!”  
  
“Hello, Brick!” I called. The clover and sword emblem on her chest was a welcome sight in the too-bright morning.  
  
I took pause to tell Charon to lower his weapon before waving up at the green armored female wielding a unique minigun. She jumped down from the atomic car she'd been balanced atop, other companions ducking out from behind the cover: Butcher, their no-nonsense medic; Donovan, their tiny but formidable tech guy; and Reilly, the fire haired leader that I'd woken up at Underworld in what felt like a lifetime ago.  
  
“Good to see you. Eugene was getting mighty lonely.” Brick patted her gun ceremoniously.  
  
Reilly scolded Brick and 'Eugene' neglecting cover. She then nodded to me in greeting, “Now that the dust storm's passed, we're geomapping the last little of this corner of the city, thanks to you.”  
  
Brick now, “What's with the ghoul?”  
  
“This is Charon. My guide.” I uttered to him beneath my breath, “Be kind. Please.”  
  
Charon made a struggling, distrustful sound that was something between a groan and a greeting.  
  
“A fellow fightin' irish. Alright.” Reilly smiled. The soot on her nose scrunched, “We're headed back to base, but we'd be happy to lend you some firepower. Where are you headed?”  
  
“GNR.” Charon squinted.  
  
Brick shouted a “Hell yeah! Heavy mutant ass down there!” She was as blood-starved as the creatures she fought, that one.  
  
I looked to my partner, “What do you think?”  
  
“What do _I_....” He sighed, “What the hell. Come on.”  
  
The six of us (with Dogmeat in tow) made our way through the cracked out alleys and dirt swept streets. We worked efficiently together, dropping centaurs and Mutant patrols like they were nothing more than bloatflies.  
  
“You're a pretty good shot. I've never met one of your kind, old ghoul.” Brick attempted conversation with Charon, “Why ya out here?”  
  
“Don't ask me nothing about nothing.” He sniffed simply.  
  
“Sorry!” I called, “My partner doesn't like questions.”  
  
All halted when we stumbled upon a small group of Brotherhood knights cornered near a station in Chevy Chase by a group of Uglies we'd picked off. The new group looked as though they were about to duck inside, but our noise gave them pause.  
  
“Great.” Charon grunted, “More of these geeks. Get another raving prophet and we can start a fucking band.”  
  
“We could grab the one from Megaton.” I suggested. Charon rattled a laugh.  
  
“Halt.” The supposed leader of Steels squared their shoulders shakily, “Civilians are not allowed access beyond this point.”  
  
Charon rolled his eyes.  
  
“What the fuck? We just saved your asses!” Brick shouted.  
  
“Eat it, pal!” Another knight spat.  
  
Reilly had to physically hold her associate back as she spat more crassness than my companion could ever hope to achieve.  
  
“ _Initiate Reddin!_ Show some damn professionalism.” The foremost figure hissed loudly beneath their helmet. Then added softly, “Besides. They're right.”  
  
Charon whispered an aside to me, “And the light dawns on marblehead.” I had no idea what that meant, but I liked it.  
  
The exasperated leader took their helmet off and stepped forward. A woman, blonde and tan with her hair piled into a messy bun. She and the rest of her squad wore the power armor typical of a Brotherhood member, with one noticeable difference: The symbols emblazoned on their chestplates included a lion in the design—reminiscent of the ones used as heraldry long before the Great War.  
  
“I am Sentinel Sarah Lyons, of the Lyons' Pride. My squad and I were sent to thin out the ranks here and assist those stationed at GNR Plaza. But... as you may have noticed.... we're just... surviving.”  
  
“You're doin' a bangup job.” Charon said dryly. “You know that station you were about to run into is chock-full of ferals, right?”  
  
Sarah glowered at him, face reddening. She couldn't have been more than a year older than me.  
  
“It's Reddin. It's all her fault.” Another of her squad piped up stealthily.  
  
“Lyons, _shape up and cut it out_.” She directed her gaze back at me, “Look, I don't trust wasters, ghouls, and mercs. And you don't trust us. I get it. But if you want to go any deeper, we can bring the heavier guns.” She nodded towards Reddin, who held up a Fatman—a bulky launcher.  
  
Brick tsked at the inadvertent attack on her ego.  
  
“We're headed for the Galaxy News right now.” I smiled icily, “If you'd like our help, I suggest you follow.”  
  
“Heh.” Charon finished.  
  
Brick added to the stewing pot of tension, “Hope ya'll can keep up.... _Clunky shits_...”  
  
Charon smiled at me for just a moment. No doubt revelling in the unusual, newfound fuzzy feeling of being united in cynicism with people he'd normally hate. I couldn't help but return the gesture.  
  
We walked further into the uniquely hollowed hell. The Lyons followed, muttering, but throwing no more stones at the command of their Sentinel. The alleys seemed to get slimmer and dustier, but with Brick and her Eugene bent on leading the charge, it was easier to choke the groups of mutants down to the last--at least enough to get through to our destination. Sarah and her own proved formidable at taking down stragglers, if a little disorganized. The Initiate seemed restless, complaining about too little action.  
  
Just when it seemed like there'd be no more room to get through the veined networks of broken walls, the path opened up as soon as we passed beneath a wilted billboard advertising a shiny red atomic car. I wiped the sweat from my brow and took a deep breath. Another light at the end of another tunnel.  
  
Galaxy News Radio's plaza was massive, perhaps the largest rubble-cleared space in the entire network beyond the Mall. The slate and ash headquarters of the old radio station stood defiantly unbroken against the foggy sky. At least, it seemed intact from the entrance's side—in reality we'd find the headquarters had been sliced cleanly down the middle. Brown sandbags bolstered the threshold of the impressive wraparound steps to the entrance. Brotherhood troops paced along quietly. Sarah'd notified via her walkie talkie that we were “granted clearance”.  
  
The radio tower atop GNR's building and its original logo were both shiny gold, the cause for preservation as mysterious as the man housed inside.  
  
“It's like reaching the Emerald City.” I breathed, reaching out to touch the large globe sculpture centered in the square.  
  
“'Cept it ain't exactly green.” Charon added as he lowered his gun and relaxed his stance.  
  
“What the hell's an 'Emerald City'?” Reilly was spinning on her heels to take every bit of the square in.  
  
Donovan heckled, “We must be one of the few 'dirty wasters' to step foot out here, huh?”  
  
“Damn quiet.” Brick huffed, “Eugene doesn't like it.”  
  
There was a thundery sound rolling in from behind us, northwest of the building.  
  
 _Maybe it'll rain,_ I thought excitedly. I turned towards the sound and watched the sky.  
Thunder again. Again.  
  
Now, it was far too rhythmic. Dogmeat began to growl, then bolted off.  
  
I called for her, but it was to no avail.  
  
“Wilde...” Charon stepped closer and warned softly. His scarred face was struck with worry. I felt the back of his hand brush against mine. I recalled the planetarium and his fingers in my hair within the Life Preservation capsule—the same rushing sigh of closeness just as danger cut in. I felt the hairs on my arm rise.  
  
That awful, rumbling sound drew nearer from behind the cluster of buildings. Dust from the aftermath of the storm began to jump with the impact of... of..  
  
Sarah shouted fiercely to her crew. Reilly mirrored her, “Rangers, cover! _Now._ That means you, Brick!”  
  
I was the one to grasp at my shocked partner, now. I took the collar of his brown leather jacket and yanked towards the nearest sound structure—the reinforced concrete surrounding a subway entrance. We wound up sandwiched next to Sentinel Lyons, her Initiate, and Brick.  
  
“Dios mio....” Brick sweat while readying Eugene. Electric eagerness and fear danced in her features, “Do you see that? It's as big as a fuckin' house!”  
  
She was right. The largest mutant any of us had ever laid eyes on. Twenty feet tall, its flesh the orange-green scab color of the rotten, irradiated mud that lined the Potomac River. Car parts decked it for armor and a collection of rusty shopping carts were fixed to its back. A collection of human heads dangled from a necklace comprised of thick cables. They swung dully, mouths open forever.  
  
“A Behemoth.” Even Charon's voice was shaking.  
  
The beast roared as though acidic pain was compressed within its heaving chest and swung blindly with a strangely too-large fire hydrant attached to a long steel pole. Several brave knights stationed outside met it in force, but were swiftly flicked away by the Behemoth's wrath. We were nothing more than ants to this creature.  
  
Sarah spoke fast into her radio. “Loudmouth HQ. This is Pride Six, right outside. For godssakes how do we _fight_ this thing?”  
  
A voice from the other side buzzed, “Throw everything you've got, Six. And get the Wanderer out of there, stat. Three Dog needs her alive.”  
  
Sarah looked to me, at my jumpsuit, a realization suddenly hitting her.  
  
I shook my head, eyes still carefully glued to the monster while still trying to remain hidden, “I'm not going. Not until this thing is dead.”  
  
Sarah screamed, “I have orders--”  
  
“To hell with your orders!” I shouted over Brick's desperate barrage of gunfire. I would not leave my friends here alone to fend and die for themselves.  
  
Charon, “Wilde, you have to find your father. Focus on the task--”  
  
The Behemoth screeched and flailed closer to our position. The ground shuddered, more pieces of stone and dust raining from above. Charon and I both reflexively pulled the other down to duck lower.  
  
Sentinel Sarah began to shout and argue, but it was then that Initiate Reddin got up and charged. The Sentinel screamed at her troop to retreat, but Reddin was already out in the middle of the firefight, brandishing her Fatman with a reckless cry. She fired a missile on her knees, missed. It was in that same sweep of a second that the Behemoth swung its massive fire-hydrant weapon closer, sending the heavy globe sculpture jumping from its pedestal with a sickening crack. I watched with blood rushing panic in my ears as it swooped upon Reddin--knocking her down and rolling over her body like it was nothing.  
  
Sarah made a weak, sick kind of sound with the shock. Reddin lay before us, closest to Charon. She was bent all wrong. Blood poured from the breaks in her armor, sunk out into the cracks of the ground. She was _still_ trying to move towards the Fatman in the middle of the plaza. A mangled metal hand was twitching and pointing.  
  
“Please ...Take... t-take it...”  
  
She wilted—silenced, over. The beast raged on. Its attention was dangerously close, only held back by the engaging troops. Without warning, Charon darted out from cover.  
  
“No, don't--” I hissed. But he was already gone, making a beeline for Reddin's weapon. Sarah held me back. “ _You've gotta stay alive._ ”  
  
The ugly hammer fell again. Charon zipped from it by what seemed like inches. All the relentless noise, the tremble in the ground, the hectic movement of other soldiers—they all seemed blocked out. I reached out for him as soon as he was within distance. He passed the Fatman into my open arms and dove back down at my side.  
  
“I told you not to--”  
  
“You want that thing dead?” Charon gasped a catching breath, “Then we'll get it dead.”  
  
He rose his voice against another Behemoth scream, “You! Brick! You're strong enough to fire this thing.”  
  
Brick went from looking hopelessly doomed to happy as a child in the pre-war movies. She motioned towards the heavy launcher in my hands now. I passed it to her, Sarah helping me with the weight.  
  
“Hell yeah...” Brick chewed her bottom lip and cursed in panic suddenly, “This doesn't have any ammo, old man!”  
  
Charon reached into his jacket and passed along a mininuke. Sarah radioed inside and the stout, silver shapes began to fall back as though choreographed.  
  
“Holy shit. Where'd you find—nevermind...” Brick shouted as loud as she could, “ALRIGHT. Soon as the Fatman sings, shut your eyes!”  
  
She waited for the tired Behemoth to take a wheezing breath. What looked like a thousand tiny punctures bled out from its skin. I almost pitied it. It was in mindless pain, even before it'd been weakened.  
  
"Rock and roll, bitch!" Brick balanced the launcher on her shoulder with a grin as fat as the mammoth weapon's name. The nuke catapulted, hitting its target beyond the ear shattering boom. Ugly yellow-white light invaded my shut eyelids with it. I hummed the old 'Duck and Cover' song I'd learned as a child to combat the assault of noise in my ears, and I could feel Charon and Sarah both shielding me on either side. Brick was laughing a cheer even through the furious sound.  
  
Reilly was the first to call out from her own hiding place as the carnage settled, “It's over! It's down!”  
  
“It's dust, more like!” Another of her Rangers clapped. Half the buildings that made up the plaza were dust now, as well. A dense ring of charred gray scarred the now wide open wound in the plaza. Brick, Sarah, and I got to our feet shakily. Charon took a Rad-X, offered one to the rest of us. To my overwhelming relief, Dogmeat appeared behind the last of Riley's men.  
  
Brick got up and rattled herself into good spirits again. She slapped Charon's back breathlessly, “Not bad, ghoul. Not bad.”  
  
“Helluva kill shot.” Charon stepped away slightly and nodded. There was a note of pride in his voice.  
  
The rest of Sarah's team came crawling from the stonework, too, along with other surviving Brotherhood members.  
  
“Sergeant Vargas. You made it.” The Sentinel sighed. The quietest of her team mirrored her movement in taking off their helmet again.  
  
“Are you holding up okay?”  
  
“Barely.” Sarah trembled, grimacing, “We... lost Reddin. I should've held her back at base. I knew I should've...”  
  
An unknown knight, not of Sarah's crew, interrupted:  
  
“Lone Wanderer? Three Dog's waiting inside for you.”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
The lobby was dim. Stuffed full of the silver geeks and sandbags. The golden voice behind five years of static—Three Dog--called from the top of a narrow staircase. Gleaming a smile and howling against a backdrop of bright fluorescent lights:  
  
“There she is! Woman of the hour! Peacekeeper of the Wastes!” The short, black smoothskin figure waved his hands excitedly in a beckoning manner, “Well, come on up! Don't be shy! No need for name exchanges. You know me, and ol' Three Dog knows everyone.”  
  
Wilde looked mystified, grinning wide as she climbed the steps to greet him. Three Dog shook her hand warmly, did the same to me before reaching down to pat Dogmeat's head. The self proclaimed 'disc jockey' (whatever a disc was) wore a sliced up leather vest over a white tshirt; torn jeans. A gray scarf covered his head and tinted glasses covered his sparking, alert eyes. He addressed Riley's crew and Sarah's team shuffling inside below:  
  
“The rest of you, welcome! Take a load off, grab all the ammo and stimpaks you need!” He clapped his hands together and turned heel towards a doorless room, “This way. Let me show you where the magic happens.”  
  
He rivaled Wilde in his positive energy. ...And her collecting habit. The large tiled floor of his studio was clear and travesable, but the walls were stuffed with hanging “treasures”--framed photographs of people smiling before the war, sports equipment, posters for old concerts. I recognized one. “Dean Domino”. Couldn't remember a lick of what he sang, just that he was kind of an asshole.  
  
The rest of the space held heavy, ancient recording tech, blipping monitors, desks filled with typewriters and enough pencils, ashtrays and half-empty mugs to improvise a weapon with. There was only one other person in the room with us, who simply waved and quietly greeted us as “Margaret”.  
  
"Maggie helps me write the reports." He explained, "She's not much of a talker, though." Three Dog had swiped up a rolling chair and zipped down in front of the biggest desk, armed with more recording dingies and a single, hanging silver microphone. Wilde stopped to marvel at a row of pressed leaves nearby.  
  
“I hope the Brotherhood didn't give you too much trouble.” Three Dog paused to stir something into a mug and sip, “We have a... little agreement. They get an outpost in the center of the city, I get protection, supplies ...and coffee rations! Sweet, sweet, symbiosis.”  
  
Wilde laughed, then motioned at the walls, “Where did you get all this?” Her mouth was practically watering. _God_ , I thought, _I hope he doesn't offer any of it to take home._  
  
He kicked his boots up on the table, crossing them and leaning back in his chair, “Three Dog's been around the country, kid. I've seen it all. My folks were a traveling theatre group, and now... here we are. The big time.” He cackled a laugh as he waved his hands. “The good fight. But you don't need me to explain that, do you? You've been fighting it all along.”  
  
“I--” Wilde blushed. The rest of her face matched the small sunburn on her nose. I smiled from my silence in the corner.  
  
“No need to be modest. I'm not handing out medals. Keys to caches are my thing.” Three Dog laughed, then shifted to serious, “...I got paid to keep quiet for the old man, but you're helping me and the children of this hellhole more than anyone. So I've got something more to help you.”  
  
Three Dog flicked through a stack of papers near his mic, “The most valuable thing in this world. Information.”  
  
Wilde leaned against the closest table for balance, swallowing and gripping the edges intensely.  
  
“Hm... here... Your Dad came by about a month ago. Asking about a “Doctor Li”. And something called “Project Purity”. Any of that ring a bell?”  
  
“He used to talk about it when I was little. Never more than in passing, though.” Wilde rubbed at the space between her eyebrows.  
  
Three Dog went further on down his notes, “It's some plan to provide clean water to all the Wastes.”  
  
I snorted instinctively, “Ain't possible.” I cleared my throat and shuffled my boots at the crestfallen look on Wilde's face, “Sorry.”  
  
“James said that with Doctor Li, it was.” Three Dog shrugged, “I don't make the stories, I just yell them. He was trying to find her.”  
  
Wilde looked a little resentful, and more than a little hurt. She twitched a blink. Determination clouded over it all just as quickly:  
  
“Where is this Doctor Li?”  
  
His next words whooshed down like heavy stone in my ears. The Behemoth smashing his fire hydrant into the ground next to me all over again:  
  
“Rivet City.”  
  
A gray cloud seemed to hang in the room, and it was not Three Dog's newly lit cigarette that was the source.  
  
“Right.” Wilde perked up and hopped down from her perch at the table, “Rivet City. It's good to finally meet you, Three Dog. More than you could ever know.”  
  
“Oh, I _know_.” He winked as they shook hands once more, “And good to meet you, too, kid. Keep your head up and your gun clean.”  
  
Three Dog was true to his word and handed her a small key with coordinates. Wilde whistled for Dogmeat and nodded to me. I lingered behind, shutting the door softly as soon as she turned down the steps.  
  
Three Dog didn't seem surprised in the least, just went on rifling through papers and writing things down. I didn't want to waste his time, so I got what I needed to out right away:  
  
“You can't expect her to keep doing this without making her a target.” I said simply.  
  
“I never report anything in the moment. In fact, I go out of my way to get it out of sequence, most days. I never use her name, I never say _where_ she is.”  
  
“That still doesn't make things easy.”  
  
“The right thing--The Good Fight-- _isn't_ easy. She picked up the torch, and she sure doesn't object to carrying it. She's strong enough. The people need that, Red Guy.”  
  
 _Red Guy._ My insides twisted. Three Dog stood up from his chair and approached me. Suddenly the friendly little gleam in his eye was gone and his voice was lower than a whisper.  
  
“That's right, I've heard of you. I know what you've run from. Who you've run for. Raiders, _Slavers_ , the scum of the earth. What's your angle here, Red? Is that why you're nervous about her stories being on display? Or did your heart change for a shot at repentance? What do you _want_?”  
  
More old nonsense words I couldn't quite pin pinched the sides of my stomach and my head. Words like respect, words like affection. Words like faith and peace. Hope and love.  
  
“Nothing. I want nothing.” I said finally.  
  
Three Dog eyed me, shadowed and grim. He nodded to himself as he inhaled a sharp, deep breath from the end of his cigarette.  
  
“Alright. I'll be even more careful.”  
  
“And don't ever--”  
  
“Mention you as the cheery sidekick? Haha! Of course not. Nobody out here wants to hear about a Nice Group tidying the world. They just want a Lone Wanderer.”  
  
Three Dog turned back to his equipment and said his farewells, adding, “Sooner or later you're gonna have to confront it, Red. The past may hide, but it never dies.”  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
I ran into Sarah slumped over near a Nuka Cola machine. She sat on her helmet, hair fraying from the ends of her bun and eyes swollen with tears.  
  
She spoke out to me, almost acerbic, “How do you carry all of it? The death. How do you do it with a damned thumbs up and a smile?”  
  
“I... I don't know.” I sat down beside her. Most days I felt something beyond my control was guiding me through. Separating the pieces of me like oil and water, just so I could get something done without breaking. I was above and below, looking through my own eyes and somewhere else all in the same seconds. But I couldn't give Sarah all those details. Surely, she'd think I was crazy.  
  
The Sentinel hid her face in her hands, “I told Reddin... I told her to watch herself with those damn Frankensteins and she didn't listen... but she was still under my command. _It's my fault._ ”  
  
“You can't take it back.” I said, “But you can honor her in what you do. Every day.”  
  
“This was our team's first real mission, you know?” Sarah sniffled, “I'm just... so tired.”  
  
“But you cannot, will not, give up.” I replied quietly.  
  
Sarah shook a sigh out. It was just us and the cracked buzz of the Nuka Cola machine, until one of her men called her name. We both stood.  
  
She put her helmet back on, “When I first saw you and your ...friends, I didn't realize... I worried you were a bunch of dirty, needy wasters.” She paused to scratch behind Dogmeat's ears, “I'm glad I was wrong.”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“There you are!” Wilde waved from the bottom of the stairs. She was burning blue even in the damned dark--the sun and stars. “What took you?”  
  
I stomped down the stairs, “Telling Three Dog he needs to find some new music. Aren't you tired of listening to that fucking sunnin' song yet?”  
  
She chortled while gathering up her pack. “Reilly offered a place to stay on the way to Rivet City in exchange for more map data. You ready to head out?”  
  
“Yes.” For once the diversion (hell, the very idea of being surrounded by _people_ ) sounded like relief.  
  
Rivet City was going to be tricky—not because of ferals or mutants or raiders. But because Three Dog was right. My sins were not going to stay buried with Ahzrukhal.  
  
Not unless I could smash them into the ground _myself_ first.


	8. Subterranean Homesick Zodiac

**James**  
  
Springvale was a breath away from Vault 101, less than a day's walk from Megaton. Memories came flooding in from when I made the trek all the way from Rivet City with my baby and a young Brotherhood knight at my side. A then sprightly Old Lady Palmer had been sent outside to see if it was “safe” yet.  
  
It wasn't, it still wasn't, and it never would be.  
  
I was in Moriarty's Saloon. Wilde crying in my arms. She'd been crying ever since her mother went into cardiac arrest, it seemed. Like she knew all the world's sins and what had been lost. What had been _taken_. When Palmer approached me, whispering that her Vault was in dire need of someone with my experience, Wilde quieted. That's how I knew to follow.  
  
“Er, Remington...” I said now, shivering exhausted against the wind, “I can't be this close to town... If my daughter were to return...”  
  
The young man comforted me as he picked up a tattered rug behind a dusted counter inside what used to be a local Diner. He draped the rug over his motorbike, “We ain't gonna be long, sir. Not so much as a merchant bothers with Springvale. And besides--”  
  
Remington took down a framed dollar from the aged wall. He pressed a bright red button decidedly with his fist. His half-heartedly manicured beard twitched with a bashful smile,  
  
“--I learned from the very best how to find the good hiding spots.”  
  
The metal flooring behind the counter shifted to reveal a long, wide staircase. Remington winked with a snaggle-tooth grin at me as he carefully centered the framed dollar back over the wall and clomped his way into the depths. I followed.  
  
“Now, by my accountin'...” Remington brayed as he slammed another switch below to shut the shelter doors, “Your daughter's probably headed towards Galaxy News in the heart of the city, or she's already there. So it's my professional opinion: we steer far out from the city and the Mall. ...Also, due to some ...personal conflicts... I am no longer allowed in any major cities in the D.C. Area.”  
  
“Are you a violent person, Remington?” I frowned. Did this 'Mei Wong' deceive me, did I decieve myself? I understood killing was necessary for survival just as much as anyone, but had I saddled up with a bloody-handed fiend behind the friendly mask? If that was so, we in more trouble than I thought.  
  
“No, sir. I am an _honest_ person. And that's more offensive to Washington than anything else.”  
  
I breathed and took a seat on an old, overstuffed couch. The handstitched poncho covering the back was newer--dusty with orange-reds and lavender.  
  
“Ol' Leadeye and Blindbelly Jones made me that to remind me of the desert sunsets. I miss Los.”  
  
Remington offered me a bottle of clean water and a stimpak from a miniature fridge. I took them shakily.  
  
Remington draped the poncho over my shoulders, “Hey. It's going to be alright. And if you need to cry, you go on ahead and do that.” He said oddly while he hung his hat on a crooked nail over my head, “All the best heroes cry.”  
  
I thought of my daughter again. Bundled up in pale blue, her tiny hand clutching at my armored labcoat. Wailing in the cold gray light. And I _did_ feel the need to cry, but I found I could not. Instead, I nodded in thanks with a weary smile. I lost my grief by further observing the underground shelter. Weapons and supplies unlike any I'd seen hung on a handmade rack directly across from me. A life-size cardboard cutout of a lanky looking cowboy propped up nearby startled me.  
  
“Sunset Sarsparilla. The most popular beverage in the West! E-S-T 1918.” Remington sang as he cleared off a cluttered workbench at the east end of the cramped space, “Don't mind Festus, he's never done any harm.”  
  
Remington motioned at my wrist. “Alright, let's take a look-see at that Pipboy.”  
  
I unsnapped my once trustworthy device from my right hand and gave it to the man with the strange habit of naming ambient objects. Remington inspected it, whistling. He turned back to his workbench.  
  
“Left-handed, huh? This is a bulky old model. Things are really rare.” Remington muttered to himself, “Damn shame.”  
  
I was distracted by a large, hollowed out gumball machine in the corner near the workbench. He was growing plants in it, with a homemade heat lamp and a strangely rigged up filter with little plastic tubes running all through the rusted out base.  
  
“Remington, where did you get that filtration system? It's ingenious.” I asked.  
  
“I found a tiny one in a vault somewheres, rigged it right up.”  
  
I trembled with the realization. This man was more than a ride and a gun. This man was a savant. My excitement was quickly interjected, however. I jumped and exclaimed at the sound of a ball peen hammer getting smashed nonchalantly through my Pipboy's old screen.  
  
“We'll keep the frame.” Remington said, still laidback, “But the innards are lost. Sorry.”  
  
“I need it... I-I can't possibly go on without...” My notes. My wife and child's voices on the small holotapes I kept on my person at all times. I realized I might never hear them again.  
  
“I ripped a list of every vault location in this damnable place from their regional headquarters. We might can find one if we follow that trail.”  
  
“Yes.” I said immediately, “Yes, that sounds promising.” I couldn't tell Remington until I fully trusted him, but I understood now. I understood why Mei Wong left me in Andale with nothing more than a flare and a tentative promise. If Project Purity was to be revived from its ashes, I'd have to search the Vaults. I needed this funny little man.  
  
“Alright, let's go, then.” I started to get up.  
  
“Now, hold on a Bloatfly pickin' minute. You're gonna need a rest and at least a few stimpaks before we step out. You're a wreck. No offense.”  
  
I fell back into the sofa, my body shouting with electric currents. He was right.  
  
“But.... I can't stop here. I have to keep going.” I felt like crying. I felt like dying. And all the same, I was terrified of both. There was so much left to do, I could not afford the luxury of 'rest'.  
  
“You're gonna have to catch a break somewheres. I may as well start.” Remington coughed, grabbing up his guitar, “One time I was ridin' my motorbike. I was going down a mountain road. I was doing 150 miles an hour, I reckon. On one side of the mountain road there was a mountain. And on the other side, there was nothing--there was just a cliff in the air. But I wasn’t payin’ attention, you know.. I was just driving down the road...”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“Hey... uh, Charon, right?” A ranger called from the corner of a large, round table, “We're dealing for a game of Caravan. You in?”  
  
“I don't play.” I said simply, not so much as looking up from cleaning Wilde's rifle. I worked.  
  
“Shit, Ghoul doesn't catch a breather anywhere, does he?” Brick snickered as she threw some caps down.  
  
Reilly laughed from her seat, Wilde's Pipboy in her hand, “I can't believe it! The smartypants spelled my name wrong in all her entries.”  
  
“You really shouldn't be going through that stuff, Rye.” Another ranger quipped.  
  
“Hey, _she_ went looking through _my_ terminal without asking. This is fair payback.”  
  
“What's in there? Do those contraptions have games?” Brick asked.  
  
Reilly shook her head, “Just journals after journals, it looks like. A lot about...” The leader of the gang eyed me furtively, smiled. Faded before a minute could pass. She shut the Pipboy off. Electric green glow left her now hardened features. Brick made a grab for it; stopping when Reilly told her sternly to _back off_.  
  
The leader excused herself. I had a faint idea why. It stung, but I focused on Wilde's rifle instead. The serial numbers across it were strange, next to a symbol I'd never seen out here, but could weakly remember.  
  
 _boston_ , Philly was gasping shredded meat, splintered glass in my head. I worked harder, until it was the only thing I could focus on.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
Reilly was waiting for me outside the entrance of the showers.  
  
“Hey! Did you get that mapping data you needed?” My smile faltered when I noticed the concern—grim lines now deepened the shadows in her usually warm face.  
  
“Sure did.” She said. Her voice sounded short.  
  
“Be careful with the subway lines, there's ferals everywhere.” I said, trying to keep things light.  
  
“Yeah. Speaking of Ferals.”  
  
Oh, here we go. “You looked through my personal things, I take it?”  
  
“Are you sure this is wise? I know you're tough, but he shot his last employer in the head. And the contract thing...”  
  
“I've thought about that. And been warned about it. Multiple times, actually. Thanks, but would you kindly step out of the doorway?”  
  
Reilly sighed gently as she moved out of the small doorframe, “You know, your stubborness isn't going to protect you like armor does.”  
  
“Well, gee. It's a good thing I have armor, then!” I bustled past her in the tiny hallway.  
  
“I'm serious, Wanderer. This is may be too heavy. Even for you. Don't let that kind streak keep getting you into trouble.”  
  
“Kindness is the only thing that separates us from monsters.” And I refused to let this world turn me into one. Besides, I was capable of far more than niceties, just as I knew Charon was capable of more than violence. The key was choice. He just had to realize that.  
  
“I'm telling you as a friend. That attitude's gonna bite you in the ass. ”  
  
“Well, it's fortunate I've got ammo, too.”  
  
"Ammo's fuck all when you've caught feelings, Wilde!"  
  
I didn't have a comeback. Just a wiry, hot lump in my throat at the realization that the Ranger was right.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“You've returned.” I said quietly, more to myself than for her. I felt an alien kind of joy that she was still smiling, unflinching confidence in my presence as she settled down in the bunk bed across from mine, snapping her Pipboy back into place on her left wrist. Dogmeat left my side for hers momentarily.  
  
Wilde patted the mutt's head gently. “Of course.”  
  
“Last chance for newcomers.” Brick called. “Wilde?”  
  
The boss was sifting through her pack, attempting to take stock of its contents, “No, thanks! Maybe later.”  
  
Reilly rejoined her crew at the table. She seemed hardened with resolve by something. Once she had her cards in order and her caps thrown out, I knew:  
  
“So, Fightin’ Irish… what do you miss most from before the war?”  
  
All casual conversation and smiles drained from the room. Wilde looked up from her Pipboy in the Ranger's direction, stricken and livid. Reilly was grinning like a cat who'd just drug a giant rat from the bag.  
  
She wanted me to crack. I recalled Ahzrukhal, hell even Barrows, doing similar things. Like there was a kind of ugly Secret, a code they needed hidden behind my teeth. So they'd throw up nonsense words when the bar was quiet and the doors were shut. I'd always forget them. The dreams, they stuck. There was nothing I could do about that. But now the _When_ didn't hurt as much as I thought it would--not as bad as thoughts that leaked in with shoulder pains.  
  
No, it'd take a lot more than some smoothskin's probing to break me. Especially when there was good work to do.  
  
“I miss... funnel cake.” I said finally, plainly.  
  
Wilde smiled from behind chewing at a fingernail. Brick was the first to let out a laugh, cackling, with the rest of the team joining in.  
  
“Well, alright. Smartass.” Reilly said. I winked at Wilde. It was nice to see the bunker get a little brighter, with Roy Brown playing crystal clear in the background. No one hopped out on chems or miserably drunk. The war in my head could keep cold another day.  
  
Laughter turned to fractured conversation, and then quiet. Three Dog could be heard talking about the Boss' father, questioning why he left. Three Dog was trying to say very little and instead make light of it all, as was his way, _“What went on down there? Vacation? Revolution? Somebody fart?”_  
  
I could practically feel the sinking pit in Wilde's soft stomach despite the space in between us. As everyone else began to retire for the night, she still seemed shaken.  
  
“You're going to find him.” I spoke up, after a long internal debate on whether or not my words could offer any sort of comfort.  
  
“I know.” She replied in a hushed tone, “It mostly hurts that he left for Project Purity... he could've told me. Why didn't he let me help him?”  
  
She took a deep breath. I didn't have any answer to that. I barely had the answers for myself as it was.  
  
“Maybe my father was right. ...Before I met you, I told a fellow something about himself. I told him the truth. Because I thought it was the right thing to do. He gave me that rifle you're cleaning in thanks, but I can still see the pain on his face. And I can never take that back. Maybe I'm too implusive. Maybe… maybe I’m not good enough.”  
  
“No use getting tangled up in old hurt.” I replied, “You're trying. Let the rest go.”  
  
“I-- Thank you.” She said, “What about you? Riley's outburst was... unacceptable.” She shook her head.  
  
“It's nothin', Barrows and Ahz were hinting at it for years.”  
  
“It is _far_ from nothing. Why didn't they tell you?”  
  
“They were... frightened of me, I think. Seems everyone is.”  
  
“I'm not.” She said quietly, “I just didn't want to hurt you.”  
  
I recalled the way she smiled when we met. How every time I was struggling, she looked ready to reach out. Ahzrukhal had taken chunks of me away to dig at later. Barrows, however friendly he was, treated me like a test subject stuck in a tube. Something you could only help when the gloves were on.  
  
The irony that the first soul to treat me like an equal also held my contract didn't escape me. But it was clearer now: Wilde was the best hope. Not to fix my mind, nobody could do that. She was the one willing to standby. And that meant more than I could ever allow myself to express. Instead, I could only tell her what she wanted to hear, and what I was starting to believe:  
  
“You're not good enough. You're better.”  
  
It sounded clumsy coming out of my mouth, but it brought a hint of glow to her face and got her back to something close to normalcy. That was all that mattered. As she hummed along with the radio, I couldn't help but wiggle a foot along. Her presence was growing on me. Hopeless and stupid. It was like standing near a barrel of radiation—unnerving how much comfort I found in it.  
  
Ahzrukhal's watery wheezing behind my ears, “Don't you remember, boy? Everything you care for will be ripped away, and it'll be your fault. I'm trying to help you.”  
  
 _No._ He would not win. Not today, not ever. Not even from beyond his damnable grave. I tried reigniting hatred, anger. Distance through disdain. Complete failure. Dogmeat'd curled up near me and Wilde was yawning that it was time to turn in.  
  
With the click of the Pipboy light came silence. With silence came the threat of memories. I wasn't about to let myself dream again. I left the compound quietly. The Contract yelled within to _stay_ , that I was Breaking the Rules, but I wormed my way out of it. Reilly's compound was secure, a whole crew of friendlies rested in other bunks, I would be back as soon as the sunlight hit.  
  
It wasn't until the night air hit my wartorn face that I realized this was the first time I'd been totally, utterly alone by my own volition. Awkward and anxious at first. Like a shut down escalator in the middle of an antsy crowd. I lit a cigarette shakily, marched. Found some molerats in the nearby alley to devote my attention. But what did I do when they were all dead and gone, when all I was left with was silence?  
  
Enemy of my enemy.  
  
I found the nearest subway entrance and descended. I wasn't there to kill the ferals, no. They'd leave me alone. Their forms still scared me, even when they were innocuously scratching and laying about. It was probably an insane thought, but somehow powering through the fear in places like this (I was not them, I would never let myself _be_ them) helped.  
  
For a time, anyways. A bothersome blip of a memory ushered in with the flicker of an emergency light on the track nearby: hands are clean but the iron smell of blood is raw and close in its assault. hair on my fingers in clumps. these monsters are all lined up on either side of the long passage to kill me, they're going to kill me. but they do nothing. i'm coughing out breaths in like a broken exhaust and i'm ripping at a silver chain around my neck. my shoulder is all red. the skin peels from under the dried crusty brown of a shirt i'm pulling away. my voice is scared and crying and cracked like the thoughts in my head. i'm crying for philly and yelling for frank but there's no sound. why isn't it healing. why are they staring  
  
how long? 23rd october. thats the last day i remember cause its when the bombs fell. we felt them. all the way down here. they really did it. they ended the world. on my fucking birthday jesus christ  
  
i'm changing the password. trying to ignore my hands, shaking. bleeding now, skinless. 76 subjects, 13 researchers. i was going to die here. frank's gravelly voice 'no, you're already dead.' this is doctor alexander khaulman, boys. _not even a goddamned paperclip._ the vault door is sealing with a scream. i look back once. there's no numbers on it at all--  
  
Two soft tones from above. “Your attention, please: Report any suspicious activity to the nearest security personnel. Thank you for choosing D.C. Transit.” If I could find the source of the recording, I might've shot it. Some of the ferals nearby howled, sniffing deliriously before going back to mindless gnawing and flinging through rubble.  
  
I took a deep breath. Too long in this sick chamber. Had to go up for air.  
  
The same tones from before, “Help keep The Capital clean. Throw all trash into the nearest receptacle.”  
  
“Yeah, yeah, I hear ya.” I waved a dismissive hand towards the ceiling and turned heel for the entrance.  
  
 **\---**  
  
It was still dead night by the time I returned. I was surprised to find Wilde awake, sitting up in the dark and turning knobs on her Pipboy, her face scrunched up with intent.  
  
I dared to ask, “What are you doing?” I would've taken a seat at my bunk, but Dogmeat had claimed it. Snoring fierce.  
  
“Playing Red Menace. Sh, shhhh... shit.” Wilde scooted to the right, inviting me to sit with a half-aware nod. I did so, but not unlike a battered mongrel might reach for a gentle hand.  
  
I could feel myself trying to become as small as possible, my hands curled upon my knees with my back hunched in way that was borderline cartoonish. Wilde looked comfortable, cross-legged. One glance at the freshly bleeding nail on her left thumb, though, made it clear she was not.  
  
“Bad dream.” It was less a question, more an acknowledgement we were in the same sinking boat. Armed with two buckets with holes at the bottom. Rotted oars.  
  
She turned off the Pipboy and rubbed at her forehead with a soft hand.  
  
“I woke up seeing Reddin. The way she just threw herself...” Wilde shook her head and trailed off, then twisted around to blink at me. Her gaze was so sharp and so bright, even in the depths of darkness. _When the boat was broken, she'd be the one showing everyone how to swim._ This thought was a scoffable weakness any other day, but now it brought warmth.  
  
“What about you?” She asked.  
  
“Went for a walk.” I answered quickly. I didn't intend to say anything more. But I backtracked, slowed, and found myself asking, “Wilde ....Is there such thing as a Vault with no number?”  
  
The shocked blink passed quicker than I thought it might. Then came the knit eyebrows and the disappearing bottom lip in concentration.  
  
“No? As far as I'm aware, Vault-Tec always numbered their experiments and kept records.”  
  
“Experiments?”  
  
A little nervously, “Not exactly a comforting thought, I'm sure you're aware.”  
  
“What'd they do to you?” I asked. It was more welcoming than I could say. I hadn't been able to confirm if anything I could recall was real.  
  
“I think... they wanted to see how long they could keep the door closed. Not everyone had it so easy. But from what I've learned, the Overseer failed at that before I could even walk.”  
  
“Whole damn world failed the day they decided treating people like lab rats was a good idea.” I grumbled.  
  
“That's no reason to quit fighting.”  
  
“I didn't say nothin' about that.” I was the one to smile at her now, laughing quietly. If there was one thing I knew how to do when everything else went to hell, it was fight. She glowed right back.  
  
A rare kind of peace was with us. Safety. For once, I was content to share it with her.  
  
“I'm going to fire you one day, you know.” Wilde yawned. Then, in the highest confidence, “You’ll be alone. You’ll go where you want. And you're going to be okay.”  
  
The statement terrified me—but which part? The prospect of freedom, of change? Or the thought of losing purpose?  
  
 _Losing this,_ the thought slipped through the wall I’d worked so hard to build. Unease and comfort blended together underneath my stony skin. Even now, as Wilde settled down and fell asleep, my inner dogs were fighting. War.  
  
I held on to consciousness as long as I could, there in the gripping, sweet dark. But much like death, sleep took us all, one way or another.  
  
 **James**  
  
“And it was at that very moment that I looked down at my hands and saw the pickle was bein’ beamed up alongside me. That I knew for sure that, that I didn't want a pickle--”  
  
I raised my hand to the Cowboy in the middle of his off-key little story. His gentle strumming stopped.  
  
“It was only a fistful of caps.” That nagging detail still perplexed me. “I don't mean to insult your intelligence, but you realize that's... nothing?”  
  
“You don't get to the grand prize by counting coins. Am surprised I gotta tell a feller in a labcoat that. Then again, maybe I shouldn't be.”  
  
“I'm sorry?” I laughed. So cryptic for someone so simple, “What?”  
  
Remington returned to his melody, humming low. In a matter of minutes, to my own shock, I was singing along. I felt more comfortable than I could remember.  
  
The right path. All over again. It would change, as things often did. But here was where I needed to be _now_.  
  
“Don't you worry, Dad. There's gold at the end of alla this.”  
  
I already knew. I thanked him, regardless.  
  
 **Penny**  
  
Rory never abandoned us. Fretful kind of fool he was, he might’ve been late, but he showed up. He fought harder and meaner than I’d ever seen him that day. I don’t know what possessed him, but it had bite. I didn’t think he’d have it in his guts. That was partly why I blew my cover to help him.  
  
Not that it did much. He’d dropped his gun as soon as a dog nipped at his heels, and the water he brought us religiously for years went flying. For all his mustered might, Rory ended up collared and fallen in line with the rest of us kids.  
  
Sometimes we fought, and sometimes we lost. It was an ugly and unfair thought, but it was the truth. I had known nothing about the world claiming otherwise.  
  
Ahead of me as we marched, (well, it was more of a shuffle, we were so tired) the new kid was sniveling, shaking. (His name? what was his name? one of the slavers hit me with some kind of flashing light and zapping noise I’d forgotten) One slaver screamed at him to hush. It must’ve been the same one to zap me in the struggle, I thought. He wore something like an eyebot on his fist, whirring funny.  
  
“Ssh, sh.” I dared nudge the new boy, silent and gentle. The booger, half my height, pulled himself together. That was relief. We needed to stick together as long as possible. We needed to watch our heads and steps to fight.  
  
I just prayed I had _strength_ to keep fighting. I was trying, looking for a crack in their ranks or my gun anywhere. But just knowing where we were all going—lined up single file with the dirty men and their open fanged dogs bearing down on either side, with the funny little plastic collar around my sweaty neck--the odds of me having fight left by the time we reached Paradise Falls were getting slimmer than none.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
Slimey on the face. Licking. I groaned, my eyes screwing tighter in disgust.  
  
“Offa me, dog.” I grunted. I scratched behind the mutt’s ears despite my tone. My mind still refused to function damn near enough to want to open my eyes yet. Above all, it was Wilde’s laughter that pushed me to join the living once more. I sat up, wincing as my head lightly bonked the top bunk and cracking the bones in my neck.  
  
“Come on, Mr. ‘I don’t sleep’,” The Boss teased as she secured a strap of armor to her chest, “I’d like to head out for Rivet City before noon, at least.”  
  
I shook myself upright and blinked awake, wiping at my marred face as Dogmeat panted happily off the bunk and over to the poker table to hunt for scraps.  
  
“Ya’ll be wary, now.” Brick paused between forkfuls of scrambled eggs, “Wilde flirts with death.”  
Wilde winked at me as she countered, “Oh, you’re one to talk, Brick.”  
  
The way her hips moved along to the radio was oddly captivating, I had to struggle to forget about it. I stood and lit a cigarette while she and Brick swatted playfully at each other with words. Thanked whatever God my face was already red. Cracked my knuckles. To work.  
  
There was something warmer in the air while we gathered our pack, weapons, and headed for the narrow staircase leading out of the cold bunker. A harmony. Even Reilly was a little less leery at me before we left. Not that it would affect me, of course.  
  
Only one thought could, now.  
  
 _i’m going to fire you one day_  
  
I winced. The thick metal door of the bunker and out to the Wastes veered open. Dogmeat slipped out first, excitedly rolling in the dusty alley for just a moment. I popped a Rad-X. Overcast and, yup, still ugly. Wilde’s radio clicked on and played soft. The voices of Reilly’s rangers calling their goodbyes from below were faraway and veiled in a fizzy static I’d learned to cope with for years. Even my limbs, my self, felt unfamiliar. The only thing that felt real was the weight of my shotgun. Ran my thumb across the carved end again.  
  
 _you’ll go where you want. and you’re going to be okay._  
  
But I was finding the desire to stay. What then?  
  
I shook it away like those hell-awful dreams, forcing myself to tunnel vision on the present. For her sake, I hoped we could find Wilde’s father in Rivet City smoothly.  
  
We wouldn’t, the longer we walked I was aware, but I hoped.  
  
And hope makes a man stupid.


	9. Rivet City (Get In the Sunrise)

**Wilde**  
  
“I had another dream about that prophet.” I walked backwards so I could face Charon as he paced behind me. “What do you think? Do you think he was really mad, or...?”  
  
“You keep sayin that like the answer matters.” Charon's response was gravely agitated, his jaw clenching as he pointedly looked anywhere but me.  
  
We took our time getting to The Mall. Clearing out of downtown was more of a challenge without Reilly and her crewmates, but there were few Mutants left to bother us on the journey. It was hard to tell what, exactly was bothering Charon once our feet hit the slimy waterfront. But he was distant and barricading himself up again the instant Rivet City was less a goal, and more a reality.  
  
 _How silly,_ I thought. For some of the journey, one could almost swear we were friends. The nights we had to rest, under the stars or in a burned out building, were warm and comfortable. The most content I'd been since leaving The Vault.  
  
Despite his current rudeness, I enjoyed the company of my partner. The extra puff in his chest and kick in his step everytime 'Mighty Man' played on the pipboy. The light in his eyes when he'd find a full pack of gum or a box of sugar bombs. How rare and beautiful his rough, unbridled laughter was.  
  
Suprisingly (but not disappointingly), he had an interest in helping with the crossword in the Grognak comic I'd found in an old bookstore.  
  
“Two across. Starts with an 'A'. Six letters--”  
  
“Athena.” He said without looking up from scraping beneath his nails with his combat knife.  
  
“I didn't even give you the clue!” I exclaimed, twisting round in my bedroll. “You flipped to the answers last turn, didn't you?”  
  
Charon looked stuck in place for a moment, staring down at the dirt illuminated by the tiny campfire we'd scraped together. He looked up slowly with his keen, sleep-deprived eyes, “Why'd you talk to Ahzrukhal?”  
  
The question felt so big in the empty outdoors. The answer was so small, “You asked.”  
  
“Guess the real question is: 'Why did _I_ ask?'” He laughed until Dogmeat howled along. Then he laughed so hard he had a coughing fit, wiping tears from his eyes, and gesturing to our shared water bottle with mangled fingers. I didn't even find it all that funny, but I laughed with him. The way the cold full moon hung above and the glow of the fire flickering before him as he drank had me mesmerized. I wouldn't realize it until hindsight hit me, but I was falling in love with him right then.  
  
Here was my tiny heaven, in the way he'd lose the furrow in his brow everytime Dogmeat sighed or I smiled, or how I'd often wake up to find him tossing a bone along the cracked roads for her. But those roads became beaten sidewalks, and those sidewalks became the muddy banks of the flooded banks of a Naval Yard. And as we neared the most developed settlement in what was left of Washington D.C., Charon was now as caustically walled-off as when we'd met (if not more so). He dreaded the place for some reason. It was as senseless as war to ask him why.  
  
It was dusk by the time we reached the manmade stairs up to the pier. My heart was twisting over the thought my Father possibly being across the rusty, salt-smelling bay. Rivet City was awe-defying: an ancient, (mostly) intact aircraft carrier that had been the center of the region's scientific community since the New World could remember. The colossal vessel creaked chillingly even as the rows of windows and holes in the metal carrier beamed with vibrant embers of orange light. I looked to my partner, who'd just dragged himself to stand at my side and lit a cigarette.  
  
He was puffed up like a peacock, leering hatefully out at the giant statues that dotted the landscape. There wasn't a chill in the air this evening, but he was trembling a little.  
  
“These smoothskin cities.” He grumbled, “Don't like 'em.”  
  
“I'm glad you're here with me.” I said earnestly.  
  
His face became softer. He grumbled at his shoes, “Let's find your Dad and get out.”  
  
I nodded, pressing the huge red button centered above a loudspeaker. I recognized the voice on the other end with an immediate smile.  
  
 **Charon**  
  
“Rivet City Security. State your business.”  
  
I'd never been in this trash heap before. Only ever conducted business outside it, near the broken mirelurk-infested bow. That fact didn't make hiding my terror and guilt any easier. No, it only sharpened that dagger.  
  
Wilde pushed that red button again. “Hello, Harkness.” Sunny as ever. She'd given the last of our water to another waster.  
  
“If you were pre-war, you'd get looked at for bein' a communist.” I dared to joke.  
  
She laughed. Worth it, even with all the other shit bogging my mind down.  
  
“Ah. Hello, Wilde.” The loudspeaker answered, making me jump slightly.  
  
Metal screamed and scraped in the fading heat of sunlight. Purple and blue hues stood out on the water like a bruise. I mirrored Wilde in lowering my weapon as soon as the long bridge stopped. Every clanging step towards the ship deck resounded in my ears. I wondered what part of the boat this was. I hoped Sister had been stupid enough to get himself caught. Better, killed. The tinge of self-preservation felt foreign. A lot like shame, but cold and curdled.  
  
The head of Rivet City security was Harkness. He didn't know me, but I knew him, because not too long ago it was my job to know how Rivet's security roster went. He was taller than me. Perfect skin. Polished armor. Thick, dark hair. A dull voice and a smugly flat expression. Polite. Nose.  
  
For me, it was hate at first sight.  
  
Most assured, Wilde was pals with him. They hugged, and Wilde introduced me while I whirled at the surrounding doors and catwalks, looking for all options of escape. Harkness tried a handshake with me, but by the time I noticed the attempt, he was already stiffly retreating, embarrassed. He ushered us into the entryway of the 'Marketplace', hastily gesturing around at the different stalls in the hangar like an obnoxious guide. He finally left us when a female guard called for his aid.  
  
The halls of the boat reeked with a swampy, corroded musk. And that was heaven sent compared to the attitude. Discretion wasn't the only thing that kept a ghoul gunrunner away from this side of the River Styx.  
  
I slouched in an attempt to shrink away from all the sideways looks and leering whispers, as others ducked into their rooms. Wilde seemed confused as to why folks weren't as friendly talking to her. Confusion bled to outrage when we reached the 'Weatherly Hotel' in the upper decks.  
  
The smoothskin behind the desk cooed in a voice just loud enough so I could hear while she grabbed for the dusty glass bowl of candies, “I can't let your friend in, I don't know what kind of bugs, or, or--”  
  
Wilde didn't have the patience to let her finish, “Are you serious? I found your nephew, and you... you know what? Nevermind.” Wilde raised her hands in exasperation and marched. She spouted a series of numbers and letters on the way out, as if they were curse words. I would've thought my employer had finally lost her mind, if it weren't for the Vera Waverly's Mr. Handy robot shutting down in a heap on the floor behind us.  
  
We passed a makeshift museum (which I laughed at), church (which I laughed at and Wilde scolded me for), medbay, and residential rooms before stopping at the marketplace and grabbing mirelurk cakes. Disgusting. I ate it at Wilde's request, but not before feeding half of it to Dogmeat. The owner of the small concession offered up his room for Wilde's remaining Radaway. I thought it was a foolhardy trade.  
  
The fisherman's abode was cramped, but extremely clean. The cold informality of bleach-white bunks under blue light made me nervous. Almost like I was gonna have another flashback. Thankfully, I didn't. We dropped our gear and let Dogmeat rest. Cleaned up some. And by that, I mean we wiped the sweat from our brow and shed a layer. No time for showers with a stray Dad on the lose. I laid my leather jacket on the bottom bunk, taking care to grab my Rad-X from my chest pocket. Wilde unzipped her jumpsuit down halfway and tied the sleeves around her waist.  
  
I felt oddly vulnerable around her in these moments—campfires, cover, places of rest. When things were quiet and I could really look at her, it was the fear of God striking me; The Planetarium all over again. Athena. Good luck picking up my jaw off the damn floor.  
  
Wilde broke the curious silence as she pulled her hair back into a ponytail, “I've got a gray undershirt, you've got beige. What a colorful pair we are, huh?”  
  
If this was a flirt, it was terrible. “Very amusing.” I deadpanned. She smiled anyways. It made the room a little lighter and reality a little less sharp.  
  
There was an excitement charged in the air around us as we exited, making our way towards the Science Lab. The rush of seeing the finish line, it seemed. _The rip of the tape as I charged through, stinging heat in my face as I raised my arms._ Tingly, fizzing headache again. I was remembering more. I didn't know if that was good or bad.  
  
The hopeful atmosphere dampened quickly. You could still smell the fear on near every smoothskin we passed.  
  
“The only way out is through.” I told Wilde, who looked drained and irritable before we even reached the nearest ladder down to the middle decks. “Focus.”  
  
I hadn't seen my old contact, Sister. At least there was that for a silver lining.  
  
Two guards stood outside a thick door at the end of a long passage. 'Laboratory' was stenciled fatly above it in black spraypaint.  
  
Wilde's voice was tired and antsy now, but as syrup-nice as she could possibly make it. She hesitated beneath the burning white lights, “I'm The Lone Wanderer. I'm looking for my Father, James, or Doctor Li.”  
  
The two bulkheads were squinting beyond her, directly at me. I squinted right back.  
  
“Doctor Li is busy.” One spoke disinterestedly. Wilde squared her shoulders.  
  
“I'm certain she'd speak with me. Kindly, let me in.”  
  
“Sorry, sweets, you're gonna have to wait 'till tomorrow.”  
  
Wilde's breath was louder now, almost like some dragon's. Me, I was tired. I knew why there was no room here for us. And I was worried about my connections to this place. I suggested we lay low in a bar somewhere, relax a bit. If James was here, he was probably not going to leave in the dead of night.  
  
Wilde looked on the verge of screaming. Surprisingly, she agreed finally and turned around so we could leave. At that exact moment, a guard mumbled an insult at me. I would've heard it, but the world got all hazy for a second under the lights. In a flash, his eye was smashed and sunken by a single, lightening rod of a punch.  
  
The man balked on the floor, clutching his face. I could only stand, awed that I was not the source of the punch, and entranced by how quickly Wilde rubbed her knuckles on her undershirt and composed her voice,  
  
“I'm going to have a drink and cool off. When I come back, you're going to let me and my friend in.”  
  
“Harkness is going to hear about this!” The other guard warned as Wilde stormed down the hall. I had to widen my steps to keep up. Residents who had peeked out at the noise dove back into their rooms. Except one. A dark haired woman with the same 'smite-thee' gleam in her eyes as Wilde.  
  
“I'll tell him myself!” Wilde shouted over her shoulder. The mysterious woman was still staring at us as we passed, following us with her head. I could feel it.  
  
“You could've asked _me_ to punch him.” I muttered to my boss, then got brazen, “Month or so's ago, you scolded me for busting a nose.”  
  
“Excuse me? In a smelly ship full of bigots? You bet I'm punching.” This satisfied both questions.  
  
At the very depths of the ship, we found the Muddy Rudder. I was curious how this bar stacked up to The Ninth Circle. It was bigger, uglier. But bustling to the brim with people.  
  
“Too many.” I griped to myself. But it was poorly lit and easy to get lost in. If I was going to lay low from Sister and his goons, it was best done here.  
  
I followed Wilde into the maw of sweaty, yelling smoothskins. Wilde seemed unusually zigzagged and tired, so I rested a hand on her shoulder to keep track. To my disbelief, she reached up to hold it.  
  
We broke the bond and traded it for another. (Geezum, her touch was turning me into a weepy poet) The woman behind the bar was brusque, but didn't flinch at me. Wilde downed a whiskey, then another. I sipped at warm beer. When the boss pulled out a cigarello with a wavering hand, I lit the match for it.  
  
“You're shaken up. S'Matter?”  
  
“The people here are disgusting. Except Harkness. Then again, he's not... ah..” Wilde shook her head. I was too busy darting my eyes over my shoulder every few seconds to read into that statement.  
  
“There's something else.” I grumbled, half-crazy to myself. Paranoia turned to sour panic. A familiar scar glinted in the light of the opposite wall. The owner of that scar was a scrawny, slimy bastard who was as weaselly and devious as a smooth could get: Sister. Ahzrukhal's man on the outside.  
  
“You're right.” Wilde sighed and exhaled, “Charon... I don't know if I'm ready to face my Father.”  
  
She stamped her cigar out, crossed her arms, then lay her head down.  
  
“You don't have to. Not right now.”  
  
“I killed my mother.” She said it so sudden it caught me off guard for just a minute, like she dropped something fragile and crystal at my feet. “Not directly, but I know he blames my birth on her death.”  
  
 _(charlie dont  
you dont want this  
  
i'm so sorry)_  
  
Sister was staring at me. Then, in a flash, he ducked out. For a second there, he looked like my brother. Wilde excused herself. I darted to follow the latter.  
  
Until. I was stopped by the dark-haired woman. Even in the half-dim light, I could recognize her, with that ratty scarf. She seemed to appear from nowhere at all, grasping my arm and leading me over to her corner with casual, unnerving grace:  
  
“Angel Eyes. Sister's noticed you.”  
  
“Who are you? What's it to you?”  
  
“You're _awful_ nosy for someone who doesn't have a septum. I'm a friend.”  
  
“Don't have friends.” I growled.  
  
“Nonsense. Friends are like assholes or gaurdian spirits; you must have one. Mind you, some of our friends _are_ assholes... some of our gaurdians, too...”  
  
She went on rambling in her peculiar way, half in english and chinese. We wound up leaning in a corner with a broken Jukebox playing classical music, near the exit Sister'd used.  
  
Wilde was out of the restroom by that point, wiping at her eyes with the backs of her hands. I wanted to turn around, swim across the dead sea crowd, and join her. Be there for her. Carry all her sins and forget mine for a time.  
  
But the contract forgot all my wants in the next second, as the woman lit a cigarette:  
  
“Sister's noticed your pal Blondie, too. He's probably running off to his room at the Weatherly or Waverly or whatever. Bound to radio all his little networks. I suggest you ditch this city before he gets his cronies, hm?”  
  
I nodded, spun to get back to where I needed to be. No time to distrust, no time to question this short gal's motives. The dark-haired woman locked me in place with her stony eyes once more,  
  
“Don't face Sister alone and don't be stupid. I'm warning you. Zai jhain.”  
  
“Goodbye.” I said, half-aware I was speaking at all. She swept away, disappearing with a riddling smile. My limbs felt heavy by the time I made it back to the other side of the room. Wilde was chatting with none other than Harkness.  
  
“A-231 treating you alright?” I caught the tail end of their conversation. Wilde's eyes were still misty and red, but no longer crying, “Yes. Thank you.”  
  
“Good.” Harkness smiled mechanically when he noticed me, clearing his throat:  
  
“Ahem. Charon, I apologize for the behav--”  
  
“Can it, string bean. Wilde. We need to talk.”  
  
“There's no need to be rude.” Wilde rolled her eyes.  
  
I backtracked, “I wish to speak with you.”  
  
When she saw my expression unchanged; she huffed until we reached the entryway. I stopped just outside the bar. She leaned against the doorframe, crossing her arms. The way the red light from the caged sconce hit her curves in stripes, I felt older and younger all at once. The deathray glare in her eyes made me wanna curl up with a cigarette and die.  
  
I stood there, dumbly silent for a while, trying to decide if I should lie to her or pray forgiveness. While the devil and the angel on my shoulders duked it out, Wilde tapped her foot impatiently.  
  
“Why are you being so cold to Harkness? He's been nothing but nice.”  
  
Oh, this again. “Niceness doesn't grow my ears back. There are two things I gotta do; One is eat, so I can smoke and live. The other is make sure you're safe. Got it?”  
  
“Don't patronize me.” She said simply, and that was all it took to shed my impatience with her.  
  
A shadow moved in the lonesome hallway. My flighty mind screamed. Sister. Frank. Ahzrukhal. Every demon I ever knew was on the damned boat now, lurking in all the shadowed corners.  
  
I couldn't drag Wilde into this. I had to fix this. I had to leave.  
  
A good partnership stuck together, but a better one knew when to split up. Wilde would ask why. I needed to make this fast. I needed...  
  
“Is this because I was talking to Harkness?”  
  
I needed her to hate me.  
  
I cocked my head at her, half laughing, “You think I'm jealous.”  
  
She licked her lips. Why did she have to make everything so hard. Step any closer, and we were bound to kiss. Kiss, and it was curtains for us.  
  
“Well? Are you jealous?”  
  
That fizzy, unreal feeling in my vision again. I fought off old memories of pulpy films about private eyes and smoky rooms. I lifted her chin with my thumb, “You're a fool if you think I'd get jealous of a mall cop and some spoiled vault princess with Daddy issues.”  
  
She didn't hit me, though I'd prepared myself for it. What she did stung worse. Gentle as a lover, she bunched up the front of my shirt collar. She stood taller, on her toes, until our foreheads touched. My heart felt upinned, full to burst.  
  
The words came soft as cream, and they dug in like a knife: “You're fired.”  
  
It took tremendous control to stay still while she unlatched herself and retreated back into the bar. I made myself look at her for the pure pain of it—fists clenched and gaze fixed downwards as the crowd slovenly parted for her. She didn't look back. It was the least I deserved.  
  
I sharpened all the screaming need beneath my skin and moved in a different direction than I wanted--quickly and too monster-like--down the darkened, quiet halls.  
  
 **James**  
  
Remington was very lazy and very, very strange. A frustrating individual, he insisted I rest beyond the time I needed to recuperate. He, too, slept long into the sunlight and what's more, set aside a couple more hours to “wake up”--which consisted of grumbling and grooming his beard, four glasses of dirty water, stretches, hacking coughs, and absentminded fiddling with his toolbench. He strummed and sang loudly to anything that resembled a tune, but I never knew the songs. I could only half sing along and appreciate it.  
  
He was oddly private and open in the same breath—he had no qualms bringing up his past or explaining his oddball inventions and habits, but I always felt I was only getting pieces of his story. Almost all his adventures sounded like they were fish tales. The shadows beneath his bright eyes said otherwise.  
  
On the trip out to the first vault we'd explore, he explained that he was once a bounty hunter in the Mojave. But he left, partly because he found his boss was a “ghoul-hater”, mostly because Mei Wong, his long time friend and accomplice, had taken the keys to his “destiny”, and led him on a chase.  
  
“She thinks it's a game. She even warned me when we started working together. 'Don't rely on me, Cowboy. I'm a hungry ghost'.” He shrugged, “And in some ways, she's right—it _is_ a game! I know all that. But I need those star caps. They're the only thing, 'side from my gun, I had from before I was born.”  
  
He got teary-eyed, then laughed. This cycle of moodiness was an unyeilding pattern. As we set up in an old church tower overlooking vastly abandoned earth, he ruminated to the pearly clouds that he felt like a glitch. I could only shrug and nod halfway. It was bewildering to be around a man who bore his feelings so openly.  
  
I questioned his sanity as he set up his bedroll, his rifle, several rations of food and smoked a piney smelling cigar. He placed that garden gnome and his guitar within in reach, as though they were especially necessary.  
  
What Remington lacked in sense and energy, he made up for in inspiring strokes of brilliance. Just as I was about to question the merit in climbing to the top of an old belltower, he said,  
  
“I think it's awful funny that old car lot 'cross the street ain't being used by any mutants or raiders. It's good scrap. Defensible.” He stopped humming, lay on his belly, and gazed down his scope.  
  
Three minutes later, in the silent lavender of dusk, Remington fired his first bullet. It hit the glass window of an old atomic car. A shape flung itself from a vehicle nearby and sped erratically towards the source of the noise. Then another. Three more. Five more. Howls crawled down my spine like mud and ice.  
  
Ferals. Remington shot one in the head.  
  
“We don't have enough ammo...” I whispered, “And by my calculations...”  
  
Like a yoa guai who'd been prodded with a stick, Remington emitted a grumbling cough that shut me up.  
  
“Calculations are good, but I get more luck with trustin' my gut...”  
  
I watched a drop of sweat bead down from my newfound guide's hairline. His brown eye whirled down the scope.  
  
“...And bullshittin'.”  
  
Remington pulled the trigger. My wondering eyes finally landed upon the small, dirty red propane tank propped against a half-rusted bumper. The boom that resulted was a fraction of the impact Mei Wong had created. Its cleverness was in the resulting chain reaction: two more junk cars ended up igniting, popping and combusting in short, but effective, bursts. Thick, black smoke billowed up from what was left of the lot. I looked over and Remington was smiling like a child, chin resting on his propped up fists.  
  
“Now. Where's uh... what direction were we goin' in again?”  
  
 **Charon**  
  
I was lost in more ways than one by the time I reached the Weatherly Hotel. The air had become even more stifling and stale upon returning to the upper levels. But I could barely notice. Outside I moved with silent purpose as I searched for Sister in the hall, but inside I felt pulled apart. That pins and needles feeling covered me again as I tried to rationalize why I'd whirled thrice at the sounds of doors opening, when they remained shut.  
  
 _you're gonna be okay,_  
  
I wasn't okay. Not one bit. Every thought was an ugly turning pinwheel that kaleidoscoped into fists and fleeing.  
  
By the time I noticed his ugly figure in the dim, Sister'd already rounded the corner. I had to suppress my instinct to run and grab him by his filthy coveralls. I didn't want to alert the sleepy guardsmen. And what use would I be if I were stopped by that lot? The tricky bastard slowed down his pace on purpose, even having the gall to smile back at me as he entered the marketplace.  
  
It wasn't the icy blast of the wind outside that made me shiver. The ghostly clangs of our footsteps carefully at war didn't make me wince, or the dramatic way the nearby prewar statues looked more cursed under the moonless night.  
  
No. The full sense of loss and fear of the unknown only came the moment we hit the dirt and I grabbed him and lifted him up by his greasy straps. Sister smiled that creased, queasy sort of grin. He sputtered a tweaking laugh:  
  
“H-hey Red Guy. Been missing your shipments for a while now. That's three loads a guns, gone. I-I'm hearing complaints from Evergreen, too. Where's your leash, huh?”  
  
“Ahzrukhal lost his head.” I grit my teeth, “You're next.”  
  
Sister was looking beyond me, behind me. Green teeth still bared. My mind was no longer cool and controlled. Every word from my old bosses' mouth reflected in the weasel's yellowed, bloodshot eyes. Was Ahzrukhal behind me? Had he cheated death? I turned around.  
  
There was a charred outline of a silhouette holding an eyebot  
  
 _(no, dear boy. it's a mez-muh-tron, we're going to use it to help... soldiers like you)_  
  
and a blinding sensation of light attacking my eyes. The stars above whirled and blurred in my vision as my knees hit the dirt. My last thoughts before blacking out were the the globe at GNR plaza rolling off its pedestal, the ebony-haired stranger in the bar, and the question to the only answer that seemed to matter:  
  
 _two across. first letter. six letters._  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
The angelic looking bartender had long since cut me off, and Harkness eventually had to leave. I was truly, utterly alone now. I crossed my arms and lay my forehead on the cool, solid bartop. Duck and cover.  
  
I only picked my head up slightly when I heard someone shifting to climb into the stool next to mine. When her eyes collided with my face, she hissed,  
  
 _“Don't look at me!”_  
  
I obliged, but not before looking sideways at her. Her dress was ragged and worn, her face sweating, but still managed to carry an air that seemed beyond regal. She tightened again in her seat, lifting the gray scarf around her neck to her mouth.  
  
Muffled, “Seriously. You're giving me The Fear!”  
  
I was staring again. I shook my head at myself, apologized. I let the lights and colors swim in my view, dread mingled with guilt at indulging in my father's one vice.  
  
“I've made a huge mistake.” I said, gaping stupidly into the rows of bottles on the wall.  
  
An odd question from the woman: “Are you one of them?”  
  
“Who's 'them'?” I asked sincerely.  
  
“Oh well, whatever. Nevermind.” She was quaking along to the music on the jukebox as she lit and then proceeded to stamp out a cigarette. She proceeded to turn so she was practically talking to the metal wall, “There's a man here named Sister. He's a slaver, and he's after me. ...Dammit!” She tapped the countertop abruptly, seething, “I told him not to go alone.”  
  
Her leg tapped on the stool in rapidly. A drunk in the back of the Muddy Rudder coughed, and I swore the ship lurched. Whatever 'the fear' was, I was starting to feel it, too.  
  
“50 caps. That's all a pistol costs. Think you could help a girl out?”  
  
Nonsense. The cheapest gun at the market was twice that, Charon had complained about it earlier. The thought of his name made my face hot and my insides turn in an unusual way. What had I done? I needed him back. I could no longer confront my Father alone. I needed a drink. Space. Perhaps a long nap.  
  
“Are you listening to me? Your man knows Chinese. You know that? Where'd he learn it?”  
  
I hid my head in my arms again.  
  
“I didn't mean to dig a knife in you! You east coasters are so sensitive to questions. Stay cool, Blondie.”  
  
I didn't have anymore caps, shamefully. I half recall drunkenly telling my new acquaintance a set of coordinates. Then, slipping Three Dog's key into her hand. I wished her luck. She frowned, as though expecting a trick. When there wasn't any, she looked guilt ridden and bit her thumb.  
  
The stranger insistently led (okay, _carried_ ) me back to the fishmonger's room with anxious protectiveness, flinching at every single mannequin we passed.  
  
“A Quick Fix is closed by now.” She whispered to herself. “I'm bound to be a mess tomorrow.”  
  
“We're all a mess.” I said bitterly.  
  
The woman patted at her forehead with that scarf, “Yeah, well. At least we're hot.”  
  
I laughed and it repelled the darkness in me, at least until we neared the hangar dedicated to the marketplace.  
  
At the end of our walk, she gave me Three Dog's key back.  
  
“My name is Mei Wong. I really hope I never see you again.”  
  
The shock of her name was dulled by a full night of booze, and she was nothing but shadow before you could say “farewell”. I could only close myself off in that broomcloset of a room and tsk at the sight of Charon's leather jacket left sloppily across “my” bunk.  
  
A tidal of emotions came through, and I ended up pathetically buried in it, crying and digging at myself until I could shudder off into sleep with the stubborn thought that tomorrow would be better. The sun would rise, my partner would surely be back, and I would apologize.  
  
I could fix this. Dogmeat kicked and snarled in her dreams, as though she knew it wasn't so.  
  
Light would reveal the truth, as it so often did.


	10. Along the Watchtower (Young Courier/Old Haunts)

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Wilde teams up with yet another friend with a bad reputation. Remington shows James the value in chilling out, and Charon finds himself between a rock and a hard past.

**Charlie**  
  
The sun was beaming down mean and hot through the jeep window like it was out to zap me.  
  
My brother Frank was chipper and mean as ever, meanwhile.  
  
“Nine across.... oh, wait, that's not right. _Two_ across, starts with 'A', six letters.” He paused to sip from his canteen, “Goddess of justice and warfare, born from Zeus' head.”  
  
“Persephone?” Phillip guessed aloud from his seat next to me.  
  
“Shut the fuck up, Barrowman. For Chrissakes it starts with an 'A'.” My brother snarled. I don't know why he hated him so much. Then again, Frank hated anyone I had affection for.  
  
"Just riling you up, Mac." Phillip murmured.  
  
“That one's easy." I interrupted. I only answered on a count of it'd been a long drive, and I didn't feel like sitting through their bullshit any longer, "Athena.”  
  
Frankie hounded me for getting it right on the first try, “Egghead trash.”  
  
Philly piped up, breathless with nerves but trying to mask it, “Our destination's coming up, huh?"  
  
“Uh-Yuh.” Frank mocked.  
  
“Did you all take your Rad-X?” I asked. When no one answered, I asked again, shouting. The ute roared, but the panic in my head was louder. The orange landscape around us zipped by.  
  
“For the last time, yes. Why are you always on about that?"  
  
Philly nervously interrupted Frank's jabbing at me as we passed a run down gas station. "Oh, oh! I see civilization. "  
  
 _“I joined the war effort cause I thought I was going to help people.” Philly'd complained in training. “...Dad was right.”  
  
Frank had laughed in his sadistic way, “What kind of idiot joins the military to **help** people, huh? You join up to shoot commies.”  
  
“And if you kill an innocent or two, they give you a medal.” Philly said bitterly._  
  
I remember laughing at that. I hadn't adjusted well to the life either, but at that moment I'd resigned to know my place.  
  
Frank had complaints, but opposite reasoning.  
  
 _“Nevada? What the hell do they need in Nevada? We won't get to shoot nothin' there. Send us to Anchorage.”  
  
"You ain't shooting anything." I snapped, "We just interpret."  
  
"Spies. We're _spies_."  
  
I rolled my eyes.  
  
“I heard there are many classified operations in Nevada.”  
  
“Like what?” Frank had snorted temperamentally at Phillip's interjection, “Digging holes?”_  
  
We had no idea.  
  
The three of us went on operating with our usual dysfunction--Phillip biting his nails and Frank so insistent on doing the damn crossword even with talk of the world ending. We glanced over the brief again. There were some nuclear testing grounds nearby and the Big Hats wanted a small farming village nearby to be evacuated.  
  
"Are we negotiating? Escorting? What?" Philly wondered aloud.  
  
Frank made an ugly joke. Hatred whistled like a screaming kettle from underneath my skin.  
  
But something was all wrong. The thought trickled in the moment we pulled onto dirt roads, growing as we slowed, and I felt I knew the second my eyes spied a mean little bark scorpion crawling near my booted feet as we stepped out of the jeep.  
  
The scene was unlike what we'd seen before. People lined up all up outside on a main street. A few more troops and trucks, too.  
  
The mood in the jeep shifted as we parked and Philly looked as though he were going to vomit, he was so anxious. My brother was leering all-wheres and nowhere with an expressionless face; chewing his inner cheeks slow.  
  
"This is.... off." He said to me. I didn't respond. I felt like I wasn't all there, drifting and fading in the background. As we joined the other soldiers, the picture became clearer.  
  
The Big Hats had dragged out the townspeople. Even the elderly—one woman so frail I swore a wind could sweep her up and carry her off. I watched her struggle to climb down the steps of a feed store, her adult daughter helping her down; a baby cradled in the crook of an arm, wrapped in a thin blanket.  
  
The baby began to wail, like the nearby testing sirens would in days time. I watched the Sargent's face wrinkle up with impatience as he pulled out a clipboard.  
  
We formed up quiet and mild, though the air seemed to snap around us. Skies were clear, but a storm was building.  
  
Then, we heard the words straight from the Sarge's mouth: 'Little Yangtze'.  
  
We'd never been stationed out there. But I'd heard stories.  
  
A low murmur from a few grunts. Philly was hissing nervously at my side, "I thought we only sent prisoners there."  
  
The Big Hat barked an order to be silent.  
  
Phillip protested again, louder.  
  
"Sir, that's against--"  
  
The Sargent corrected him. He shrank back into line. Something ignited and died cold in me all the same. My fists clenched. The tensions on both sides of the authority were strong now. It swelled as the baby screamed louder. The more it swelled, the more belligerent things became.  
  
"Somebody shut that baby up!" Frankie hollered. The antagonizer to the end.  
  
Phillip's voice was high and cracking with anger, "They can't go to Big Mountain! We can't be--"  
  
Frustration and disorder mounted. When the Sargent snarled and grabbed the old lady, that's when all hell broke out of me.  
  
If you asked why, I didn't have an answer. I was a strong personality guided by bad temperament. And when my emotions screamed too loud, my body sought to respond in kind.  
  
Like the numerous, bridge-burning brawls I'd gotten myself into prior, I Had to Do It. That's what I told my folks, anyways. And they'd laugh. From the first time I overturned little Timmy's lemonade stand to the 'unsportsmanlike conduct' that cost me a full ride at CIT; my violence was always excusable, situational. As far as my elders were concerned, it was the other guy's fault for standing in the way of my fist.  
  
 _“You should consider joining the Service, Junior. Your brother's meeting with the recruiter tomorrow. It'll be good for you. Builds character.”_  
  
Such a casual tone, while The War ravaged all it touched. The military itself was rife with corruption and infighting by now. But no one told us to stop pretending. And nobody told me that being a soldier would only sharpen the things that made me ugly.  
  
I remember grabbing the offending Sergeant by the arms, digging so he'd release his grip. I pulled him back from the townsfolk as the other soldiers broke rank to form a horseshoe shape around us, and what started out as a simple impulse to snap the Sargent's clipboard in half quickly accelerated into what would later be referred to as 'The McCarron Incident'.  
  
We wrestled in the sand like beasts, cursing and spitting. Commie rat! Bastard. Dead meat. I can't even recall his name, but I remember the springing pain as he cracked my nose, the blood wooshing in my ears as I jammed my knee into his dipping stomach.  
  
That baby's crying was still crystal solid over everything else.  
  
I was too busy watching the Sargent's sand-stained hands frantically reaching to grab his pistol. Such a trivial thought in that frozen millisecond: _pissed off at the wrong place in the wrong time. again._  
  
I thought I was dead. I was the opposite. I recalled my college days and the sound of a runner's gun, my feet bounding off the track. The little yellow bark scorpion flashed in my mind. I'd always been faster, stronger. I dropped my opponent. Jolted my weight and fists forth like a supernova exploding to eat the dark. And there, in broad daylight, I became someone no one could recognize.  
  
I saw red. Purple, yellow, blue. And when I finally realized that my bloodied hands were capable of stopping, when my brother finally seized my shoulders and dragged me away from what could only be called a bloody mess--that's when I realized for certain: this world was going to end, but I was going to Hell regardless.  
  
“He killed him!” I heard a civilian cry.  
  
“Jesus, Charlie! Jesus!” Was all Frank could muster out. You knew it was bad when my brother sounded lost and wavery.  
  
I stumbled like a towering drunk to face terrified innocents and squadmates huddled together in clusters--frozen in place despite the heat. No one wanted within ten feet of me. No one would so much as _peer_ in my line of sight, save that family with the infant.  
  
Phillip was the one to start directing the civilians back into our trucks.  
  
His tone was heavy, dreadful despite its command, “Get his keys. This can't be for nothing.”  
  
My unprecedented outburst turned driven and focused. I was splattered with blood and still trembling with adrenaline as I searched the deceased superior's uniform. I brought the large keyring to the only real friend I had. Phillip took them gently. The elderly woman didn't so much as blink at Philly when tried and failed to hand them over, however. She and her kin did finally follow when they saw me grabbing the canisters of gasoline out of our own ute, but not without staring at us like we were insane.  
  
Frank was in the background, screaming at us the whole way. I could only half hear him.  
  
“You're giving them _our gas_ , too? Fuck. Jesus. We are so fucked. Bickle, somebody get a jacket or a towel or... or.. somethin'. Cover that... face.... ”  
  
Philly did not leave me despite the chaos. He always held onto his kindness and morals like it could stop the bombs. It wouldn't.  
  
Arguments about who to call in and what to do with me circulated in panicked outrage.  
  
There were gunshots in the air. Frank demanded quiet. "Nobody touches my deadmeat brother, or _I_ start making this worse."  
  
He looked at me. The darkness and vitriol in his eyes was what kept the rest of the soldiers silent.  
  
How quickly we dissolved, when a single atom split the wrong way.  
  
Philly kept half sobbing while he worked. I couldn't think, couldn't breath. Somehow I was still moving.  
  
The townsfolk followed the old woman like it was an unspoken rule. She followed me to the largest of the vehicles on the outskirts of the desert, helped round up everyone and what little belongings they had without speaking to us.  
  
I opened the door to the driver's seat and Philly tried, once more, to give the keys to the old woman.  
  
“Home,” He kept clumsily repeating with watery eyes, “Just.... go home.”  
  
The old woman squinted down at me after climbing into the driver's seat. Finally snatched up the keys from my outstretched hand:  
  
“I speak English, you damned fools. You greenhorns have any idea _where_ home is after this mess?” She cursed as she adjusted the driver's seat. She was right. Mean old women usually were.  
  
"You could hide out in the old testing grounds a while." Phillip suggested, nervously taking a step back as soon as the woman looked him in the eye, "They don't start construction for another month. It's a risk, but..."  
  
His voice trailed off. He hid behind me slightly.  
  
"We will survive." She said plainly, "But you? You're all dead."  
  
I'll never forget that steely grim line that twitched in her brow as she started the ignition and drove off. We watched tire tracks in the sand stretch and stretch until the truck looked like a mirage, then, no more.  
  
When dusk came, Phillip was the only one who dared to sit next to me.  
  
"They're gonna do worse than kill us, you know." His eyes were teary, sea green. He sobbed quietly. I just clasped my hands and stared into them.  
  
"I'm sorry, Charlie."  
  
We rarely used first names. But coming from Phillip, it felt warm.  
  
"I.... did the wrong thing. Did I do the wrong thing?" His voice shook. He looked like he was going to rip at his hair again.  
  
The feed store sign above us swung in the desert wind. I offered him my hand. He took it furtively. The sun had lowered, but not by much.  
  
By nightfall, we could hear the sirens and helicopters. It was all a bonebreaking fall from here. I couldn't feel sorry. I couldn't feel very much at all.  
  
 **Penny**  
  
They brought the big ghoul in a little while after noon. I'd been in the fits of a nasty fever or some such. The new arrival fell into the Mungo pen like a giant tree, straight and face down in the dirt. So dense that clouds of dust had to settle around him.  
  
Squirrel and the others scuttled to the opposite side of our small pen.  
  
“Penny, get over here before he eats ya!”  
  
“All day you've been mocking me and now you want me to come sit over there? Buzz off.” They'd been on my case about crying when the slavers sent Rory to The Box. I couldn't help it. I'd known Rory for two years, and to a lamplight kid, that was practically forever.  
  
My tears tapered into sniffles. I'd never seen a ghoul this close before. I wondered if all ghouls were Mungos. MacCready said he saw a ghoulified kid once, but MacCready was as much a false talker as he was foulmouthed.  
  
“Does he stink?” Squirrel wiped his snotty nose on his crusted shirt, “If you touch his skin will it fall off?”  
  
"Shut up." I ignored their stupid chatter and did what was always habit: watched and listened. The guards were too preoccupied and all abuzz about a brahmin or something. Clueless.  
  
The ghoul looked mean, but not in the way the raiders were. His leather pants were filthy and his shirt untucked and torn. They'd come a long way, and I had a clue as to how they kept him half-asleep the whole way. Those funny mezzers must've zapped him. Obviously Eulogy thought he was important—fetching _one_ guy from a long distance just wasn't smart, even for a stupid Slaver.  
  
I backed away when the Mungo's hand suddenly twitched to life, and he gasped a wheezing breath. It wasn't the noise or the movement that startled me. It was his eyes; flying open like his own ghost was back in his head again. They were clouded over, almost like he was really dead.  
  
“Wild.” He coughed. He said it a couple more times. His voice cracked and parched like it meant “water”.  
  
He dragged himself into a sitting position against the brick wall we shared. I continued to eye him carefully through the bent up chainlink that separated our respective pens. The ghoul started breathing funnier and curled up in a ball for a minute. I looked away then, gave him what little privacy we could afford.  
  
I broke out into a gagging cough, doubling over with a burn in my stomach.  
  
My eyes were watery and pained. My skin felt slimy from the inside. My gut broiled. I heard the Mungo's voice rasp,  
  
“Kid. You have radiation poisoning.”  
  
The cave mushrooms would fix that. But I wasn't anywhere near Little Lamplight. I was in the dread Paradise Falls with a collar around my neck and no hope of escape. I retched a breath, lacking the energy to explain.  
  
A small bottle rolled to a stop at my scabbed up elbow. RAD-X. I picked it up furtively. There were only two pills left. It took me a second to realize what it was. We Lamplighters never bought any--we didn't have that problem in the caves--but I knew Rory always kept it in supply.  
  
“Please. Take it.” His chest rose and fell hard. He blinked upwards, swallowing hard at the sky.  
  
I hoped he wasn't gonna die. I'd seen too much of that today.  
  
“Tell me your name.” I said.  
  
“...Sharon.” He answered quietly. There was a struggle in his face, like he was grasping to remember. How someone forgot their own name unless they were a fiend, I didn't know yet.  
  
“I'm Penny.” A cool breeze swept through, hitting some windchimes strung up near the pens' shabby entrance. You could almost forget the stench of rotting carcasses and rusted cars that walled us in for a moment. “If you see anything we could use to get out of here, tell me.”  
  
“It's too late.” Squirrel bemoaned, “Soon as we hit that gate running, our heads'll just pop from the collars.”  
  
"Squirrely," I swallowed the Rad-X as soon as I saw the coast was clear. “I'm not dying here just because _you_ gave up. Watch the guards.”  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
I awoke to a headache and a rotten worry still buzzing in my bones. I cursed my way to the showers and sat beneath the water. Wondered about the rain. Dogmeat was whining and scritching at the door by the time I emerged clean and sober enough to carry onward. I found my underthings and zipped up my vault suit in a hurry.  
  
I was sifting through a sloppy mix of emotions while I hastily poked at a cold breakfast. I dragged my feet and chewed at myself about the decision to see Dr. Li. Truthfully, I didn't want to do it without my guide. The young girl at the diner refilled my water glass with a concerned smile. I needed to apologize, and perhaps a little selfishly, receive an apology in kind. Dammit! Why did I bring Harkness up? Why had Charon spoken to me like that? The night before had been... unlike us.  
  
 _He's just a salty, harsh fellow. And misery loves company._ I rationalized. But my gut said something else.  
  
Something was _wrong._ I could see it in the way Dogmeat panted and refused to make herself comfortable. I could practically taste it in my eggs.  
  
When Charon didn't return by nightfall, I went looking for Harkness for help. Busy, of course. I chewed at another nail.  
  
It was the infamous Mei Wong who found me pacing just outside of Rivet City. It seemed like a twist of fate. I remember I'd been staring distractedly at the moon, debating whether I should seek help in Underworld.  
  
"The moon's a lovely thing." A cooing voice said next to me in the shadows, "So far removed from all this pain. I wanna be just like him, don't you?"  
  
Mei's gesture slapped me back into reality.  
  
"Typically, the moon is referred to as a female." I replied with a smile, welcoming the conversation. Part of me wondered if I was weak, finding so much comfort in strangers. I was very aware of the irony--being a Lone Wanderer who couldn't stand to be without a friend.  
  
"Typical is boring." She leaned on the rusted railing. She was sweating.  
  
"What's typical, huh?" I winked.  
  
Her eyes snapped to meet mine. Her demeanor changed as swift as lightning:  
  
“I'll cut to it, Blondie. Your problems are now _my_ problems.” I couldn't tell if her tone was now annoyed with me or in earnest. Mei began moving down the bridge and waved for me to come along. I followed, partly because I was curious, but mostly because she had that kind of command. We were wordless all the way across and down the stairs. She stopped us at a dark patch outside the muddy banks of the Broken Bow.  
  
She threw up her hands like the moment called for fanfare:  
  
“And? See the problem?”  
  
I shielded my brow as though it might help me see clearly in the dark. “What are you talking about? I don't see anything.” Only the dirty sheen of the moon reflected off the water in the cold night.  
  
“Exactly!” Mei framed the empty landscape with her hands, “My horse was waiting here, do you understand? I don't know _how_ , but they stole my Ghost.”  
  
“I'm sorry. Who?”  
  
She glowered while she tugged at her scarf, “Angel Eyes really thought he could handle it, I'm guessing? What a mess. I think your man was wrapped up in some trouble. Unless _he_ stole Ghost?”  
  
I assumed she meant Charon. I'd never been so threatened by a stare. "He wouldn't."  
  
"Oh yeah?"  
  
I stood my ground, "Absolutely not. How do you know my partner?"  
  
"Shh. Not outside. _They might have ears._ " She glared.  
  
I could only squint. I disliked the ominous vagueness, but I would soon find it was crucial to Mei's operations.  
  
I quieted. When Mei seemed satisfied, she glanced around shiftily once more in the silence of the night, as though she felt the statues themselves were watching. She wore the same restless frown that she'd introduced herself with the night before at the Muddy Rudder. Then she softened, her voice steadied,  
  
"Follow me."  
  
My heart jumped into my ears from the moment she said that, all the way back to Rivet City and up to her room. The bitterness and the confusion in my soul was still clawing away, but it could always be set aside for other people. I immersed myself in her and my surroundings. Her space was cozy, clearly temporary. It smelled of sex and smoke. Pages from old magazines speckled the walls. The subjects were oddly clashing: home décor and women in sleek, polished clothing were the primary focus.  
  
“I think it's pretty janky how we used to dress.” Mei became less chilling after lighting a cigarette, motioning to some of the magazine covers.  
  
I blushed. I was caught red-handed, nosing through people's things again. Mei didn't seem to care. “Did you know we used to _shave_? Isn't that just the craziest?”  
  
She seemed surprisingly relaxed with me now, even as she hurriedly dragged a familiar looking duffel bag out of a corner. Where had I seen it? My hungover brain–shorted and snappy--simply didn't want to register.  
  
I found myself drawn to an icebox in the corner. I couldn't believe it was in such good condition.  
  
"It's _locked_ for a reason." Mei's tone was darkly serious again, flicking her cig in a dusty red ashtray at her bedside. I blushed and apologized. She'd already continued on,  
  
“I came here to find Mr. Burke a few days ago. That trail's gone cold, unfortunately, but things started looking more fun when you arrived.”  
  
I could only stare blankly as she opened that duffel bag, full of guns and small explosives.  
  
"Fun?" I composed myself upright, "I'm trying to find my friend and my father, I'm not here for entertainment."  
  
Mei's puzzling, dramatic brand of wit cut as deeply as her eyes, "Says the gal with the bright blue leather jumpsuit and a dog at her heels." She smiled. It was curiously alluring, disturbing. It carried its own weight: a laughter at companionship, the knowledge that she worked better alone in ways the rest of the world did not.  
  
"Listen, I'm a liar and I'm a thief. I think you caught onto to that last night at the bar. But if my premonition is right--and you bet The Cowboy it is--you have no chance of reaching your ghoulfriend without me."  
  
"If you're a liar, how can I trust you?"  
  
"Do you think I'd just tell you that if I planned to axe you? Come on."  
  
"Alright." I nodded, "What's your stake in this?"  
  
"I give you the name of the man who might've seen him last. Do some digging. In return, I tag along and you help me find my horse. They must've stolen her when they ambushed your companion."  
  
"Are you saying... Charon's been taken? Who? _How?_ "  
  
"How should I know? I just know a vulture was looking for him. A gal's gotta keep tabs on a vulture--especially one that dabbles in the slave trade."  
  
A sour taste reached my throat. Every cell in my body seemed to grip and vibrate with an indignant, quiet rage that I felt was from another person, another time.  
  
 _(we have to do something)_  
  
Mei Wong smiled. Big and bright. She saw the answer on my face already. Venom and warmth in her hand as she offered it to me, "Let's make a deal."  
  
 **Charon**  
  
 _(can't all be for nothing)_  
  
It was painful getting up, all the mind I had left swerving in my head like I had no business telling it what to do. The contract was gone, after all. I scrambled for my senses as I grasped for the shoddy support of the chain-link fence. I gripped feverishly for the bobby pin in my pants pocket. The nearest guard, Forty, barely noticed me with the bottle of liquor hanging limply in his hand. He jolted, spilled some of the amber liquid on the lifeless earth. I twitched as it hit my toes, holding my breath as Forty stilled, and muttered himself back to sleep.  
  
The lock slipped out and through easy enough. With the threat of the explosive collar around my neck, the pens were really more of an effort to dehumanize than anything else. The windchimes started up again. I made my move. When the gate screeched a little I winced, relieved by the mystery confusion that had driven all the guards away to the front gates.  
  
Every slaver other than Forty was circled shoulder-to-shoulder around what looked like a mutated animal. I didn't really care what was distracting them; but I was thrilled to find they were inattentive. And why shouldn't they be? Any captured slave with sense would try to run, and the collars would surely take care of that. They had little reason to look up.  
  
But I had even less self preservation after losing my damn contract, coupled with a rabid force in my body that only wanted to rip and punch and tear. Was it the lack of a leash or the backwash of remembering all my mistakes? Either way, I only wanted to lash out. Just like before, and there was plenty to stand in the way of my fists.  
  
Even in the haze, I had my sights set on the man in charge.  
  
Eulogy Jones took no effort to spot. His red coattails flapped in the wind, revealing a shining purple liner. Looked like a split tongue. And it was appropriate. As cold as he was self-absorbed, Eulogy was only missing his devil's prongs.  
  
Before my fingers could even reach the trim of his collar, the cursed technology at my own neck began to emit jarring beeps.  
  
Eulogy whipped around to reveal a cattle prod, buzzing ugly and catching me in my hamstring before I could even find surprise.  
  
Ymir and Jotun were hurtling me towards the ground in an instant. I clawed and cursed as they dragged me back to the Slave Pens. From there, it was a beating I didn't know I could take that afternoon--their boots in my already storming gut and throws battering my long scrambled head.  
  
Scrambled. Eggs. Sunlight overhead stabbed my eyes as Eulogy barked out, "Control yourselves! That's merchandise, dammit!"  
  
I groaned. I was certain I lost a molar. I coughed a fit, till it felt like the skin and muscles in my chest were ripping, tearing apart all over again. I spit blood and enamel. Yep. There went the molar.  
  
I laughed weakly, turning my head to meet Eulogy's boots. Spotless in the cracked, gray earth.  
  
"Where's my guns, Red?" Eulogy tapped his foot with a snobbish air. "Hm?"  
  
I dragged myself upright again. Stumbled. Again. I wondered, briefly, why I kept doing it.  
  
Eulogy continued with confidence. A guy like that loved to hear his own voice. "You know, I was in talks to get your contract and everything. But looking at you now, you're pretty weak."  
  
I spit out more blood. Not daring to give the satisfaction of attention.  
  
"It's alright. Take your time. I'll get my cap's worth out of you eventually." Eulogy brought out a shining case of cigars from his breast pocket. They were thin and smelled like cherries, the kind Wilde liked best. I rubbed at my torn lips with the back of my hand. I couldn't even feel fear, despite my head head being a jam. I was the lowest I'd ever been since... my name'd changed I suppose.  
  
But I was breathing and not under Eulogy's employ. That was something.  
  
"You've gotta give me coordinates, Red." He traced a section of the chain fence with elegant fingers, "Or maybe point me to more of those Mezzers Ahzrukhal enticed me with when we met. Can you?"  
  
"Only thing you're getting from me is a fight." I said finally.  
  
Eulogy extinguished his cigar real slow onto one of his obnoxious cuff links. He slowly smiled despite the slow burning rage in his black eyes,  
  
"Then you will suffer until I find a buyer."  
  
 _Same as it ever was,_ I thought.  
  
He announced loudly that I was to be given no food or water for the next two days. Then he zapped Forty into a drooling mess of tears, "Don't let me catch you drinking on shift again."  
  
He smiled at me coldly before leaving, "You'll crack. The bird _always_ eats the worm."  
  
I slid against the brick walls behind the pens and crumpled in a heap again as soon as he disappeared into a nearby building. Penny spoke up after a while,  
  
"If you keep pretending to be brave like that, you'll wind up in The Box." Her voice trembled, "...Where they put my friend Rory."  
  
"Mind your business." I exhaled a shaky breath. My halfway mind recognized the small barrel of radiation nearby. I winced away from it just slightly.  
  
"Cold way to treat someone after offering 'em rad-x." Penny spit.  
  
I sighed, staring up at the unusually clear sky, losing myself and the passing of time while Penny paced incessantly on her side of the chainlink.  
  
I hoped Wilde was alright. I could feel myself slipping away into a world I did not want all over again.  
  
 _"Why, Charlie?"  
  
I shrugged, "Just had to."  
  
"That's no decent answer."  
  
"This ain't a decent world."_  
  
"....What do we do now?" Frank's and Penny's voice in my head at once.  
  
I blinked into the yellow sun. We'd wait and see if justice would be kind. That rusty old wind chime sounded again near the now hazy, falling vision of 'The Box'.  
  
Nodding off.  
  
"Hey. Hey, Mungo." One of the boys skittered nervously up to the fence as Penny sobbed, "Hey! Don't fall asleep. Don't leave us here."  
  
Whimpering. I heard a familiar sound. (hooves ? no)  
  
"Izzat a bird?"  
  
"That's definitely not a bird." Penny sniffed. "Look alive."  
  
 _Too late for that._ I would've laughed, had I been able. Instead, I just tasted the blood in my mouth and the grit against my face as I sunk face down, losing consciousness again.  
  
 **Remington**  
  
"Are you quite sure you know where we're going?"  
  
What in the steamed hell gave him that kind of an idea? I'd asked _him_ first. I squinted.  
  
"I don't, sir." I affirmed aloud.  
  
"You... haven't got a map... or?"  
  
"I got a sweet compass. Err... no object permanence, though." I joked.  
  
James did not take it as such, and was visibly frustrated. He smoothed away at his silver hair, the creases in his eyelids bunching up at my unappreciated cleverness still lingering to the silence in the night air. The fire played with his features in a soothing rhythm. I brought out my guitar and hummed.  
  
Most times, I just went along with where the weirdness took me. Maybe I didn't wind up where I _wanted_ some days, but I was always going somewhere.  
  
James rattled on, "Perhaps we should go north? A merchant in Megaton mentioned a Vault without a number..." He muttered as though some of the pathways in his head were clogged, "An anomaly...but if... hm..."  
  
James tugged at his hair some more. I coughed. When he looked up, I smiled conversationally, "Have you ever seen a Gary?"  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
Sister was indignant and vocal in his outrage when Harkness took him into custody. It didn't matter to me in the least.  
  
"Getting angry won't solve anything." I told him cooly. Harkness nodded emotionlessly. I matched his pace as he pried open a rusty door to the railing on the upper decks. Seeing the greasy informant squirm wasn't pretty, but this was my lead and I needed information _fast_.  
  
I didn't know I could twist at a man's arm so hard or claw into the flesh so deep. I was the hawk with a mouse in that moment, like in my old nature magazines.  
  
All I could think about was my friend.  
  
"Where is Charon?" I lurched forward and stamped on his toes. It sent Sister's quivery frame gripping for the railing behind with fear; a fear I found far too much joy causing.  
  
"H-hey I don't know what you're talking about." Sister stammered. I could see in his eyes a panic brewing. The blooming awareness that he'd fucked with the wrong forces of nature.  
  
Harkness calmed the rage I felt overtaking me with his patient, monotonously clear voice: "We can hold you here all night, Sister. Take some of your own advice, Wilde. Anger isn't going to solve this."  
  
My hawk's grip on the man loosened.  
  
 _(can not will not)_  
  
"You're afraid." Sister licked his lips from beneath the curtain of his greasy hair. "You should be. Red's gone to Paradise Falls."  
  
My eyes turned to shimmering slits. I could feel my bones shake as I finally, fully released my hold on the greaseball. I pushed him before moving on entirely, just enough to make him squeal and flail to catch his balance on the vessel.  
  
I nodded my thanks to Harkness in silence while I rechecked the ammo in my belt.  
  
“You’re not truly going _there_ , are you?” Harkness glanced back to me. Sister was quivering on the floor, not acting tough anymore. The light dawns on marblehead.  
  
“I have to.” I told Harkness. "I have to fix this."  
  
"He worked with slavers..."  
  
"Under orders for a very evil, very sick man. Isn't that what you did, before you stopped being a course--"  
  
“Sh, sh. Keep your voice low. It's just... you’d better come back.” My friend remarked worriedly, “And you can tell Sally I’ll keep her room safe. The Railroad owes her.”  
  
Harkness and I said our farewells. I heard Sister trying to bribe Harkness to let him go.  
  
Cold and swift, “I’m sorry, Sister. I can’t let you do that.”  
  
 **—**  
  
I stopped by my room to retrieve Charon's leather jacket. The weight of it on my shoulders felt heavy with a mix of hurt, screaming nerves, and longing. I rechecked supplies. Scarce.  
  
Dogmeat whined near the door. I found myself saying, "Guess I really am a mess on my own, huh girl?" I wanted to break down and scream. Cry under the shower again. I didn't have time.  
  
When I made it back to Mei's quarters, I was in full disbelief over how quickly she’d gotten packed. The woman was a flurry, a blizzard of productivity. She’d laid out a change of clothing on her lushly covered bed—black leathers paired with red, silken pinstriped fabric. The ensemble had been sewn together into a cutout, raider reminiscent mess, but it looked sturdy.  
  
“Got in touch with a friend from The Outcasts for help, but they rarely extend more than a greeting for outsiders. That means we need a Plan B.” She insisted between drags of a cigarette.  
  
I had no sensible response. Each time I opened my mouth, it seemed she had a new and interesting thought to share. I could only watch as she gathered more things from a chem station--bottles of luminescent purple going straight into a dusty canvas bag. I saw the spent cans of black spray paint in the corner near a dimly lit lamp, then heard the proverbial light click.  
  
I interjected, "It's you! You've been leaving me the caches!"  
  
“They're for _anyone_ with the mind to take them." Mei explained, "Yep. Sally Hatchet, as she's known out west. I've been helping humans and non-alike make like Houdini from their masters for years. ...And ...cutting down the ones who piss me off.”  
  
"Harkness mentioned the rail--"  
  
"I've been working _alone_ since long before you stepped out of your Vault. I help the occasional traveler or gun club; if they align with my whims."  
  
“And that's why you want into Paradise Falls with me?” I said as conversationally as I could. I'd wondered why a perfect stranger might volunteer for such a thing. Something in her dark eyes still made me tremble, but they were brave. Undeniably brave.  
  
“It'll be fun!” Mei said brightly. Her hands shook with excitement and something else as she deposited several tins of mentats into a smaller rucksack.  
  
 **Remington**  
  
"How about a tune instead? OH, the big rock candy mountain--"  
  
"Remington, _please._ "  
  
"Yessir." I muttered, scritching under the brim of my hat.  
  
Dusk was on us. We'd paused at a Red Rocket so I could siphon some fuel and search through other junk. James wasn’t having any more of my stories, and now my songs were off the table, too. Some people didn't know how to have fun.  
  
"I must admit that I find you trustworthy, Remington, but.... we've been collecting trash for an entire day now." James finally made his distaste known. I never understood people in a hurry. We all got to the end of it, one way or the other. If he wasn’t so damned attractive, I’d have dumped him long past Falls Church.  
  
 _And you need those bottlecaps_ , my hand reached for the trusty pendant around my neck without thought. I struggled to find that tattered list of Vaults hiding in my duster. With a lazy grudge, I swept the horizon with my night scope. Felt my stomach on the ground and let the sounds of D.C.’s Capital shell filter in and out of my ears with its creeping sounds. I stilled and stayed and listened to my heart, listened to my gut.  
  
There were many different ways to survive out here in the asshole of America, but those who excelled knew the fundamental; we were all at the world’s messy mercy now, and if you weren’t patient, you were going to have be ready to carry a hell of a lot of firepower and mistakes. James knew this too (a fella that old had to), but he was letting the sight of his end goal crowd him.  
  
 _Smith. Casey. West._ A voice that had no body gently prodded way, way back in my head. With it, the smell of gasoline. Marlon Brando was right. He always was. Except when he wasn’t.  
  
James paced behind me nervously. To an outsider, it would seem clever--a genius simply consulting himself. Really, I knew better than most, it was a quelling stress. More fundamentally, the chatter was messing with _my_ quiet.  
  
“I have also found several terminals in Vault 101 that mention a Dr. Braun….? If that helps. The Garden of Eden Creation Kit…. A device capable of removing irradiated particles from its surrounding radius. Such a device could filter the Potomac in a near instant. Salvation exists, Remington. If we could only _find_ the answer..."  
  
I coughed loud, snorting impertinently when James' steps finally slowed.  
  
"First order of business: you need to set down." I finally sat up straight and stowed my gun to the side.  
  
James paused to itch at the back of his head, his face budding red like the gas tanks behind him. Despite his flustered reaction (I'd gander very few had dared to tell him to stop moving), he mirrored my movement and sat. I instructed him to feel his seat on the hard earth, and take a deep breath.  
  
After he'd done so a few times, I sighed,  
  
"Does the name 'Smith Casey' mean somethin' to you?"  
  
"Is this another story? I do not wish--"  
  
I raised a palm and shook my head slow, "Keep an eye out for it. That's all I'm saying. For now, we're heading west a-ways."  
  
James no longer questioned me, and I could tell I'd earned his trust from here on out. Satisfied, I dug again into my duster to find a packet of dried macaroni cheese. I ripped it open, sneakily watching the murky sky for any plumes of colorful smoke. I knew there wouldn't be any, but boy, was it a habit that made me.  
  
 **Penny**  
  
"Is... is it dead?"  
  
"Sharon's asleep." I corrected Squirrel.  
  
"Looks dead t'me."  
  
"What are you, a doctor? Shut up." I snapped. We were all quiet, reserving energy, till the sun went down. I spoke up after a hard, short nap in the dirt.  
  
"Sammy, did they take your binoculars?" My stomach was no longer screaming at me from the inside. I stared intently at the slumbering ghoul, like I was trying to garner some of the inhuman bravery I'd seen earlier that afternoon. I needed to investigate further and find a way out. Help Rory. My mind was settled. I would stop at nothing.  
  
"Psst. Penny."  
  
Sammy looked first to see that the other guards were still distracted in the dark. When they were, he furtively brought them out from under his scarf. I motioned, quietly stacking some old milk crates atop each other. One way or another, I was going to get to that fire escape and reach the roof.  
  
I waited for a rotation and ignored the other boys' cowardly rejections. I moved up and along the red bricks with silence and shadow. Even when the rust scraped against my fingers, even as my knees threatened to give, I lost myself in the climb. I would only go mad, sitting still. Stillness meant death.  
  
When my small hand found the boarded up rooftop (thankfully neglected and dark) I threw my tired bones onto it. I shook, still dealing with exhaustion and the heavy blow from radiation sickness. I tried to sit up, but checkered stars interrupted my eyes. Splotches of black and white. The moon and the stars were cool, crisp blue. Dusted across the sky in endless clusters, like the little glowing cave mushrooms back home.  
  
I remember thinking how funny it was, finding beauty in such a high, awful place. Freedom felt far off, either way. I blinked away tears. The time to cry certainly wasn't now.  
  
I lifted myself into a sitting position and raised the binoculars. Adjusting to the grainy green landscape was too much, and I considered then and there to drop this plan--but when I caught sight of the unusual aircraft landing on the outskirts of Paradise, I felt stilled. I watched for a while with dumb clarity. Hope, curiousity, and fear swam around in my chest. It was a big machine, whirring. It whipped up a cloud of dust as it landed.  
  
Eulogy's guys on the outskirts were already scrambling. Soon, they'd be up and alert out here.  
  
I panicked. The climb back down was a rushing blur. I prayed as I worked to find my footing quickly in the dark, and didn't dare breathe. Sammy was there to help me down from the fire escape, making grabbing motions with his grubby hands. Probably just wanted his binoculars. I couldn't care less.  
  
"You're a clever little punk, aren't you?" The voice when I finally hit the ground was a nightmare.  
  
When I turned and blinked to realize Eulogy had been standing there with a searing white flashlight and a shit-filled grin the whole time, _that's_ when I cared.  
  
"I've no time for clever things."  
  
All the wind came up out of me as I stood icy cold near the felled milk crates. And when Eulogy personally grabbed hold of my arm and had me marching towards The Box, _that's_ when I cried.  
  
 **Wilde**  
  
The hangar door to the Science Lab was half open when Mei and I finally slinked out of her abode. Her plain manner of dress was now covered in pieces of chromed recon armor, shaped in a way that made her look light on her feet.  
  
Any other day I might've been caught staring again, but I was distracted by the Lab and the silver-haired figure I swore I could recognize. Doctor Li exited then, clearly not interested in visitors. She was arguing cooly with another colleague. Her authority was made clear by the way the guards stood at alert and surrounded her suddenly.  
  
I would've approached, but the air was tense and I felt distracted. Torn up and inside out was more accurate, though I wouldn't let an outsider see it. The man I'd punched was back on duty. His eye was a delightful shade of eggplant. At least I didn't feel torn about that.  
  
I turned my attention to the inside of the lab. That silver-haired figure within turned his head to reveal a profile that looked too much like my own. The heavy door was halfway through its weighted course to slam shut. A horrifying thought: I was watching fate slip through my fingers like sands in the glass, and if I missed it, I would miss my father. But I wasn't ready, was I? The weight of the leather jacket on my shoulders. I felt sickened and chilled. What had I done, speaking to Charon that way? What had _we_ done?  
  
"Blondie." My confused and tearful eyes spun around. Mei cleared her throat. She gave a rare, soft smile and let Dogmeat sniff her hand. My new friend hardened again when her eyes met mine.  
  
It was strange. As if she could sense exactly what I was wrestling with, "You going to stick to the plan? Or follow me?"  
  
There was little time to hesitate, was there? My partner was in trouble.  
  
"I'm with you." I nodded.  
  
A chesire's grin, "Cool."  
  
 **Charon**  
  
Even after being further addled by sleep and memory, my adaptive eyes could spot them easily. Eulogy was marching angrily past the pens, that kid Penny in tow. She was crying, worse than ever.  
  
 _The crying's what I remember most._  
  
A siren of pain from my shoulder crunched down on my bones. Made my neck lock uncomfortably.  
  
The shift from stillness to aggression was sudden. It was so easy to slip into, time and time again. I reached for the barrel of rads nearby with blind and spiteful grace. A heap of sludge was in my hand before I could inhale and I lashed out, fast and forced. Eulogy was screaming in heated panic before I could flinch from touching the damn radioactive waste myself.  
  
He clawed at the side of his face, desperately trying to wipe nothing long after removing the offense. "The Box!" He foamed, "You bitch! To the Box!"  
  
I couldn't be bothered when Clover grabbed at my collar and yanked me out into the open. I only turned my gaze once. To confirm Penny was, at the very least, led back into the pen in all the rush.  
  
Eulogy was screaming babbling threats. He didn't need me; he was going to sell my shotgun to the Evergreen fucks. "Your corpse would make a fine scarecrow, Guy! One way or another, I'm breaking even!"  
  
I wouldn't dignify him with a response. And I couldn't besides. Before I could get a handle on my bearings, Clover'd already shoved my broken body into the modified Life Preservation Center.  
  
The cold metal door slammed and locked. I had nowhere to go and nothing left to lose. You'd think a fellow would grow used to the feeling by now. I hadn't. A sick weight occupied my core as the silence settled in around me. I settled in with it.  
  
I heard a body move close to me in the darkness.  
  
Light flickered weakly from above. I thought of Wilde's stealthboy phasing in and out back at the science museum. My lungs struggled and my temples pounded. I half wept. Turn it on or turn it off. Don't leave me in between.  
  
"I remember you." Rory managed to croak out between the ugly flicker.  
  
He continued, despite the dismissive wave I gave him, "You and that Vault Dweller? In museum station."  
  
I groaned, hugging at myself and dreading the fact that so many people were recalling my face. So far, my being "memorable" had only led to more loss.  
  
Rory went on, "I did what you said and grew a spine. Some fun it's been."  
  
"Yeah, well. If you were smart, you wouldn't take my advice." I snapped.  
  
The little redhead laughed, "I can't say I regret it. I took some of them down, that's more than I ever did before." Rory nodded while wiping at his blooded chin. I softened some, grunted in agreement. Rare that I could find a sense of friendship in others so quickly, especially smoothskins. Rarer still in Paradise.  
  
"So this is it, huh?" Rory kept talking to plug the silence, "Two rats in a trap, stuck in this... this uh... what was this place?"  
  
"A strip mall." I answered him, despite it flying over his head. Few weeks ago I wouldn't have an answer, but now, the row of dilapidated shops and the giant Big Boy in the center of all the little shopfronts... just made sense. The answers were there all along. And now, a bit of the pre-war me was sticking around, for good or ill.  
  
The lights flickered again. I remembered more, blurrier things. The swelling emptiness I felt as we were being sentenced. Not to death. But something secret, something underground.  
  
I could hear the screaming metal. That big, beastly cog of a door. Being... trapped.  
  
A very familiar voice. A hated voice. Slimey, slinky. One that made me feel vulnerable and violent in one move. Doctor Khaulman:  
  
 _Specialist McCarron. Though I suppose it's just "Charlie McCarron," considering recent events. What can you tell me about yourself?_  
  
"Nothing." I wheezed aloud to no one, leaning my head against the thin metal. Wincing with another flicker of the lights.  
  
 _how long has it been  
three weeks? can't remember  
i haven't eaten. i think my hair is falling out. in my hands. it's definitely falling out. the lights.... the lights why do they keep flashing that damn light  
how am i alive  
my name is.... charlie mccarron... oh my god. i remember it today  
is my brain falling out?  
me i'm... it's slipping again. i'm  
nobody.  
_  
  
Rory began to weep, startling me out the memories. He reached between the already cramped space between us. A mixture of pity and unease when I cautiously held him to my chest. It may've seemed unexpected, but I strangely felt bound to ease the dying man.  
  
I thought of Philly. Something deep panged. Tears in my eyes.  
  
"I don't want to rot in here." Rory whispered. "Not in Paradise _Falls_."  
  
I sighed, "This is bad. But it ain't necessarily over." I told him.  
  
He wiped his eyes on his filthy flannel as he scoffed, "How do you know?"  
  
Because, surprisingly, a sliver of me had a hope that whatever path had led me to this horror would also allow me the chance to get out. That despite coming to the realization I was a wrathful monster, I was still worth saving.  
  
That it wasn't all for nothing, I was more than a nobody.  
  
I couldn't say that all out loud. Too vulnerable. So I answered Rory with fact,  
  
"I've been through worse. And I'm still here."  
  
I watched the night turn to sunlight in the small cracks of our prison, focused on the sharp smell of roasting brahmin outside our prison just to stay awake. Rory was slumbering with shallow breaths. I still held him, but there was no peace in my own quiet. Flickering light continued to mock what little left of me was sane.  
  
Whatever came next--death or salvation--I dared it to come fast.


End file.
